In 2023 I participated in the Droniada Challenge with a team of students from the Academic Aviation Club of Wrocław University of Science and Technology. The competition was held in Katowice, Poland.

The Droniada Challenge consisted of multiple different competitions, all testing the capabilities of autonomous mission systems on UAVs. The competitions included:

  • Tree of Life - a competition where the UAV had to autonomously fly over an “orchard” of colored markers and drop matching colored balls from a height of over 15 meters
  • Intruder - a competition where the UAV had to autonomously detect and track a disguised moving target on a critical infrastructure site
  • Relay Race - a competition where the UAV had to drop bright payloads on designated locations on the ground during the night

I was a programmer for the team, responsible for developing the software that controlled the UAV during the Intruder competition. I used rust to develop the first version of our mission management framework. I also helped the team during flight testing of the UAV, fixing bugs in the software and improving the performance of the system.

Thanks to our hard work and dedication, we managed to win the following awards:

  • 1st place in the Relay Race competition
  • 2nd place in the Intruder competition
  • 3rd place in the Tree of Life competition
  • 1st place for System Demonstration

Droniada Challenge 2023 Me and my team at the Droniada Challenge 2023