AUVSI Competition Overview

The AUVSI competition is an annual mock search-and-rescue autonomous drone competition held in Pautuxent River, MD on the Webster Naval Air Base. The competition is typically held in the middle of June, unfortunately during Spring Quarter Finals. The competition changes slightly between the years, but for the most part it has several main objects from year-to-year:

Autonomous Takeoff, Flight, and Landing
Image Detection, Localization, & Classification
Obstacle Avoidance
Payload Drop

Competition Field Layout

2019 Rules Overview

Here is a breakdown of the rules for this year. Please note that rules are subject to change per the Judges' discretion. The full document can be found here.

General Restrictions

Team Composition:

No more than one Grad Student
No more than 10 can go to competition (Shouldn’t be an issue)
One person will be team captain (Tom/Comran)
All communication will go through them
Must have one safety pilot
One Advisor -> Jeff Eldredge

UAS System Restrictions

Max takeoff weight: 55 lbs
Whatever is in technical document is the system we must use (4/14/2019 deadline!)
After 30 seconds of communication loss, UAS must return to home or land
After 3 minutes of communication loss, must terminate flight
No exotics fuels, brightly colored batteries
No unauthorized airdrops: secure all loose pieces (should be a lesson from last year…)
Must fly autonomously for 3 minutes to get mission demonstration points

UGV System Restrictions

May use a single UGV
No more than 48 oz (3 lbs) total for vehicle and payload
Payload is a standard 8 oz waterbottle
Must terminate driving after 30 seconds of communication or driving out of bounds
No exotics fuels, brightly colored batteries
Can only drive autonomously

Ground Station Restrictions

Display must always be viewable by judges and contain:
Map with flight boundaries
UAS position
Competition elements
UAS speed in KIAS or in knots
MSL altitude in feet
One vehicle and trailer
No objects taller than 15 feet
No ground-based sensors

Radio Frequency (RF) Restrictions

There is no RF management and any device can be used in the allowed bands
Should use hardwired connections when possible
Use encryption, directional antennas, and RF filters
Use frequency hopping or dynamic channel selection when possible
Allowed bands:
72 MHz allowed but discouraged
433 MHz allowed but must use frequency hopping spread spectrum
462.7 MHz allowed, but judges will be using this as well
900 MHz allowed
1.08, 1.12, 1.16, 1.2, 1.24, 1.28, 1.32, and 1.36 GHz are allowed but must use frequency hopping spread spectrum
1.2-1.3 GHz allowed for analog or digital video systems only
2.4, 5 GHz and cellular connections allowed
Do Not attempt to jam or interfere with other team’s connections

Weather and Airfield

Must be able to operate in 15 knot winds with gusts up to 20 knots
Operate in temps up to 110 F with 100 F sustained
Do not have to operate in precipitation but must be able to secure equipment in case of sudden precipitation
Fog conditions with minimum 2 miles visibility
Electrical power will be 115 VAC, 60 Hz, and rated up to 15 amps
Must be able to operate without power for up to 10 minutes
Airfield
Coordinates: 38°09'01.5"N, 76°25'29.7"W
Altitude: 22 MSL
Magnetic deviation: 11 degrees west

Interop System

Entire interop system is open source and can be found on AUVSI Github
Network connection
Connection provides DCHP and a single static IP (subnet 10.10.130.XXX, mask 255.255.255.0)
Connect to the system using given IP and username/password given at competition
Teams must download mission details from interop system
Must upload valid UAS telemetry with an average of 1 Hz while airborne
No duplication, interpolation, extrapolation
Can earn more points by uploading objects via interop system

Mission Demonstration (60% of total score)

Teams cannot score points while generating a penalty
If penalties are greater than points, teams receive a score of 0 for mission
Mission flight boundaries and airdrop location are given in rules
Judges
Ground station- in the tent and watch ground station controls
Safety Judge- will be with the safety pilot
Lead Judge- will be with the team lead
Judges score the other deliverables beforehand and give a ranking. This ranking is used to pick flight order
Teams must successfully takeoff and go above 100 AGL within the first 10 minutes of mission clock, or mission will be terminated
Teams must fly waypoint path before attempting other tasks
Allowed to attempt other tasks while navigating waypoints as long as it doesn’t affect the flight path
Judges can terminate the mission for:
Breaking rules
Risking safety
Accumulating too many penalties

Timeline (10% of mission demonstration score)

Provided at least 20 minutes of setup time
Last 5 minutes for mission brief
Summary of planned tasks
Roles and responsibilities
Other safety information
Mission time (80%)
Provided 40 minutes to complete the mission
Flight time and post-processing time
Flight time is while on the runway or in the airspace (30 minutes max)
Post processing is once UAS has landed and airspace has been relinquished and ends when team is done processing images and uploading data (10 minutes max)
Points awarded:
max(0, 60 − 5 * max(0, X − 20) − Y ) / 60 , where X is the team’s flight time in minutes and Y is their post-processing time in minutes.
Penalties: lose 3% of timeline points for every second over time limits
Teams are allowed one timeout resulting in a loss of 20%, lasting for a max of 10 minutes

o 10 minutes for teardown time and to clear the flight line

Autonomous flight (20% of mission demonstration points)

Autonomous flight (40%):
Receives points if UAS flies for at least 3 minutes
Lose 10% for every safety pilot takeover
Must tell judges when switching between manual and autonomous
Waypoint capture (10%)
Will be given a path of waypoints up to 4 miles in length
Can attempt multiple times and best score will be used
Must be within 100 ft of waypoints
Waypoint accuracy (50%)
Points given with: max(0, (100ft − distance) / 100ft)
Must upload telemetry data with 1Hz frequency to receive these points
Out of bounds penalties
Equal to 10% of autonomous flight points
Additional 10% if safety violation, like flying over pits
If things fall off the vehicle during flight, it’s a 25% autonomous flight points penalty
Crash penalty: 35% of autonomous flight points

Obstacle avoidance (20% of mission demonstration points)

To receive points, teams must upload telemetry data with average 1 Hz frequency
Stationary obstacles
Cylinders, height axis perpendicular to the ground
Radius between 30-300 feet
Height between 30-750 feet
Up to 30 total static obstacles
Ratio of points: (obstacles avoided / total obstacles)

Object Detection, Localization, Classification (20% of mission demonstration points)

Standard objects: Colored alphanumeric character painted on a color shape, 1 foot wide with 1-inch thick lettering
One located outside flight boundary
Emergent object: Person engaged in activity of interest
Search Area: Contain all the objects except one
Off-axis target: Will be up to 250 feet outside flight boundary
Must submit cropped images with the object filling at least 25% of the image
Characteristics (20%)
Points: correct characteristics / total characteristics
Shape, Shape color, Alphanumeric, Alphanumeric color, Alphanumeric orientation
Interop contains an enumeration of possible characteristics
Emergent characteristic: Description of person in need of rescue and surrounding scene
Geolocation (30%)
Must give the location of the object
Points: max(0, (150ft − distance) / 150ft)
Distance is the geodesic distance between submitted and true value
Actionable (30%)
Objects submitted during the first flight are considered actionable
For object file format, must submit an additional USB drive prior to landing
Autonomy (20%)
Can submit object autonomously or manually
Extra object penalty
For each extra object, penalty is 5% of detection score

Air Drop (20% of mission demonstration points)

Payload: UGV must carry standard 8 oz water bottle and drive to specified location upon landing
Drop accuracy (50%)
100% for within 5ft distance, 50% for within 25ft distance, 25% for within 75ft distance, and 0% for beyond 75ft distance
Drive to location (50%)
UGV must drive to location and stop within 10 feet of the target location to receive points

Operational Excellence (10% of mission demonstration points)

Operation professionalism
Communication between members
Reaction to system failures
Attention to safety

Technical Design Paper (20% of total score)

General Guidelines:

8.5x11 paper
1” margins
10 pt font, Times New Roman or Arial
Footer with School, Team Name, and page number
No more than 15 pages including title and reference

Systems Engineering Approach (20% of paper score)

Mission Requirement Analysis
Requirements, design tradeoffs, which systems need to be built
Design Rationale
Start with Env. Factors (Team qualifications, budget) and mission reqs
Describe flow of decisions that led to the final design

System Design (50%)

Describe what and why each system was built with the implications
Describe tests and use actual data
Sections:
Aircraft
Autopilot
Obstacle avoidance
Imaging System
Object detection, localization, classification
Communications
Air drop
Cyber Security

Safety Risks and Mitigations (20% of paper score)

Developmental risks and mitigations
Mission risks and mitigations

Writing style (10% of paper score)

Clarity, accuracy, precision, logic, relevance, depth, suitability

Flight Readiness Review (20% of total Score)

Each member of competition team introduces themselves (5% of readiness review)

Experience
Number of years on the team, Degree of experience with UAS tech
Roles and responsibilities during development and on the flight line

System Overview and Planned Tasks (15% of readiness review)

System overview- Brief overview of mechanical, electrical, and software systems
Planned Tasks- Classify tasks into attempting and not attempting and our confidence on how well we can succeed

Developmental Testing (50% of readiness review)

Types of testing
Unit testing, simulations
Autonomous flights
Number of autonomous flights and amount of time spent in automatic and manual mode
Waypoint accuracy
Description of the testing conducted on waypoints and statistics
Obstacle avoidance performance
Types of tests with statistics on the number of obstacles avoided versus attempted
Imaging performance
Overview of the tests conducted on the imagery system
Average resolution
Strategy for best quality photos
Detection and Classification performance
Testing on the algorithms
Localization performance
Number of objects, average error
Air drop performance
Number of times attempted, number of times the payload survived, average distance from the target

Mission Testing (30% of readiness review)

Full mission tests completed
Estimated scores from all mission tests