Thunderstorms, some heavy during the morning hours, then skies turning partly cloudy during the afternoon. High around 85F. Winds SSE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 100%. 1 to 2 inches of rain expected..
Tonight
A few clouds. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low 68F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph.
K-State Salina administrator Kurt Carraway explains how the debris-filled room simulates tornado damage that a drone operator must navigate through as part of a national UAS competition Wednesday, May 3, 2023.
Drone pilot Vitor Valente from Pennsylvania State University flies his team's special-built drone during a UAS competition Wednesday, May 3, 2023, at K-State Salina.
Penn State drone pilot Vitor Valente watches his drone's movements through a screen on his controller during a UAS competition at K-State Salina, Wednesday, May 3, 2023.
Competitors and K-State Salina administrators watch as a drone hovers in a hangar as part of a national UAS competition held at the Salina campus Wednesday, May 3, 2023.
K-State Salina administrator Kurt Carraway explains how the debris-filled room simulates tornado damage that a drone operator must navigate through as part of a national UAS competition Wednesday, May 3, 2023.
Drone pilot Vitor Valente from Pennsylvania State University flies his team's special-built drone during a UAS competition Wednesday, May 3, 2023, at K-State Salina.
Penn State drone pilot Vitor Valente watches his drone's movements through a screen on his controller during a UAS competition at K-State Salina, Wednesday, May 3, 2023.
Competitors and K-State Salina administrators watch as a drone hovers in a hangar as part of a national UAS competition held at the Salina campus Wednesday, May 3, 2023.
SALINA — High-pitched buzzing reverberated through a K-State Salina Aerospace and Technology Campus hangar Wednesday as part of a national drone competition.
K-State Salina hosted the First Responder Unmanned Aircraft System Indoor Challenge, which is sponsored by the National Institute for Standards and Technology. The competition featured several teams of drone enthusiasts from around the country who assembled their own version of a drone that can operate indoors, in disaster or law enforcement situations, without GPS assistance. The teams competed for a chance at winning $685,000 in total prize money, plus a chance to demonstrate the winning drone design at a live competition.
Kurt Carraway, K-State Salina executive director of the Applied Aviation Research Center, said the competition is intended to help bring more affordable drone technology to the hands of first responders.
“The project has been going on for a little over a year now, and (this competition) marks the first time all of the teams have been together to compete,” Carraway said.
The first stage of the competition began in April 2022 with the teams individually providing proposals for their drone designs. The teams had a series of parameters, Carraway said, that covered required performance capabilities of the drones as well as some “preferred capabilities” that Carraway said first responders have told him they’d like to have as features on their drones.
Topeka Fire Department Division Chief Alan Stahl said he’s been a subject matter expert on drone usage by first responders since the program began 16 years ago. Stahl said rescue crews needed a way to search the rubble of Greensburg, following the EF-5 tornado that wiped most of the town off the map on May 4, 2007. Stahl was on the ground during the aftermath of that disaster, and he said emergency officials have learned a lot since the Greensburg tornado about using unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in potentially hazardous situations.
“What we really need is the ability for (a drone system) to be set up rapidly,” Stahl said, “and be easily operated. Also, it needs to be very durable, to not break if it bumps into a wall, and another one is we’re looking at how long it can fly, and the capability to transmit video back.”
Stahl said the competition has multiple design phases. Wednesday’s event at KSU Salina was the third stage. Organizers will announce the winners June 2.
The competition featured an obstacle course designed to simulate tornado damage inside a structure. In this case, a few empty rooms on the second level of the hangar were filled with debris to mimic a twister’s aftermath. Items such as broken chairs and tables, pieces of ceiling tiles and old filing cabinets littered the rooms and provided plenty of obstacles for drone pilots to avoid. Pilots had to navigate their drones over and through the debris and land them in buckets that served as targets. Judges awarded points based on a team’s deployment time, ease of operation and flyability, real-time video capabilities, and flight time.
Drone pilot and graduate student Vitor Valente is on the executive board of the Pennsylvania State University Autonomous Robotics Competition Club. He said some of the first responders who attended the competition liked his team’s drone design that incorporated prop guards made from carbon fiber. The Penn State team’s drone featured a larger overall shape with cage-like guards protecting the four propellors.
University of Maryland undergraduate student Qingwen Wei said his team’s drone also sported carbon fiber prop guards.
“It should be able to just bounce off of things, and not crash like normal drones that don’t have any cages,” Wei said. “Something unique about our drone is we’re using an onboard computer and a camera to track the position of the drone indoors, since when you’re indoors you can’t get GPS data.”
Purdue University graduate Duncan Mulgrew is the co-founder and CEO of Uniform Sierra Aerospace in Indiana. His company’s first drone product, called Arrowhead, features a light detection and ranging, or LIDAR system, to help it navigate without GPS data. Mulgrew and his team flew the Arrowhead system in the competition, and he said it’s been flight-tested underground as well as deployed from inside armored vehicles. He said the tests Wednesday added to his team’s confidence.
“We’re proud of our performance,” Mulgrew said, “and we think we got just about the best performance we could out of our platform.”
