UAV Systems Impress Judges at Engineering Design Day 2011

By Pete Brown - May 4, 2011, 1:30 pm

Unmanned aerial vehicle systems place first and second for best overall design at annual UA Engineering showcase

The award for best overall design went to LAARK, or Low-Altitude Aerial Reconnaissance Kit, at this year's Engineering Design Day May 3.

The UA Aerial Robotics Club, or ARC, sponsored the project because it needed a comprehensive avionics system for its Avatar UAV. The LAARK design team consisted of aerospace and mechanical engineer Malcolm Gibson, electrical engineers Hans Hony and Elliott Liggett, systems engineer James Dianics, and optics engineer Michael Palmer

lark

Electrical engineer Elliott Liggett demonstrates the LAARK avionics system, which won the best overall design award. The glass dome contains dual gimbaled machine-vision cameras that can acquire 20-megapixel images at three frames per second.

ARC itself won the best engineering analysis award, sponsored by Raytheon, for its Avatar UAV. ARC will integrate the LAARK system into Avatar before it competes in the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International student UAS competition in June 2011.

ARC describes Avatar as its most advanced UAS airframe design yet, and says the integration of LAARK will create one of the most capable student-built avionics systems in the country.

Second place in the best overall design category went to Project Shrike, sponsored by Raytheon Missile Systems. The Project Shrike team designed a low-cost, gimbal-less UAV camera system that can provide a stable video stream that compensates for the movement of the UAV as it pitches and rolls in flight.

Project Shrike team members were optical engineers Sean Keller, Jeff Knafelc, Steven Haim and Alex Marty, mechanical engineer Paul Shickling, and Keoki Kimzin from the engineering management program.

These projects were just a few among almost 60 designed by UA engineering students and shown at Engineering Design Day, the UA College of Engineering's premier showcase of student design.

rube goldberg machine

Young students study the Rube Goldberg machine on display at Design Day 2011. The contraption was sponsored by Texas Instruments, who want to take it to trade shows to demonstrate onboard TI chips and microcontollers. The machine won the prize for best use of prototyping, sponsored by PADT.

Design Day is organized by the college's Interdisciplinary Design Program, Engineering 498, and sponsored by BAE Systems and the college.

In a surprise announcement during the awards ceremony, Greg Waterfall of Texas Instruments said that the company was awarding two first prizes of $1,500 for best analog design. One of the winners, the human-powered vehicle, will travel to Dallas to collect its prize and to compete in a nationwide TI competition for the $10,000 Engibous prize, named for TI chairman emeritus Tom Engibous. A 2010 Design Day project took second place, and a $7,500 cash award, in the competition last year with a portable brain wave monitor.

Engineering seniors competed for almost $11,000 in prize money during Design Day 2011, which this year returned to the ballroom in the Student Union Memorial Center.

Slide Show from Design Day 2011

UA News Video

Prize Winners

Best Overall Design, First Place • $1000
Low-altitude aerial reconnaissance kit (LAARK) for integration into an unmanned aerial system
Design team: Malcolm Gibson, Hans Hony, Elliott Liggett, James Dianics, Michael Palmer
Project sponsor: UA Aerial Robotics Club
Prize sponsor: BAE Systems

Best Overall Design, Second Place • $750
Project Shrike low cost UAV gimbal-less camera system
Design team: Sean Keller, Jeff Knafelc, Paul Shickling, Steven Haim, Keoki Kimzin, Alex Marty
Project sponsor: Raytheon Missile Systems
Prize sponsors: BAE Systems

Best Analog Design 1 • $1500
Solar panel power monitoring system
Design team: Robert Benjamin, Alan France, Gautam Hari, Brianna Heersink, Suman Maharjan, Joel Marquez, Ajay Shrestha
Project sponsor: Texas Instruments
Prize sponsor: Texas Instruments

Best Analog Design 2 • $1500
ASME human powered vehicle: utility class
Design team: Andrew Laverty, Roy Green, Christian Schultz, Josh Kaliszewski
Project sponsor: UA ASME club
Prize sponsor: Texas Instruments

Best Computer Modeling/Analysis • $1000
Trench volume measurement tool
Design team: Justin Mamer, Andrew Davenport, Bryan Boone, Jorge Sanchez, Colton Noble
Project sponsor: Caterpillar Inc.
Prize sponsor: Hydronalix

Best Use of Off-the-Shelf Components • $750
Development of a modular unmanned underwater vehicle
Design team: Ammar Al Raisi, Arturo Armijo, Collin Reynolds, Eduardo Moreno, Erick Johnson, Ryan Maish
Project sponsor: Eduardo Moreno, Industrial Tool Die & Engineering, Intel, Pololu, CH Robotics
Prize sponsor: Edmund Optics

Best Use of Prototyping • $750
TI sensor-based monitoring & control system
Design team: Aidan Garza, Christopher Kemsley, Chris Featherstone, Andrew Weatherly, David Mares, Sheng-Hann "Leo" Yang
Project sponsor: Texas Instruments
Prize sponsor: PADT

Best Engineering Analysis • $750
AVATAR -- aerial vehicle for autonomous target acquisition and recognition
Design team: Malcolm Gibson, Jun Li, Christopher Poole, James Powell, Joshua Tolliver, Dimitri Ververelli
Project sponsor: UA Aerial Robotics Club
Prize sponsor: Raytheon

Best Presentation • $750
Self-stabilizing helicopter landing platform
Design team: Scott McCall, Phillip Puentes, Mark Jankauski, Diego Gil-Azamar, Logan Rivas
Project sponsor: Boeing Rotorcraft Mesa
Prize sponsor: Rincon Research

Best Design Documentation • $750
Precious gem classifier
Design team: Gabriel Brewer, Joseph Brewer, Mona Eskandari, Julia Harden, Craig Oliver, Monica Rainey
Project sponsor: Alternative Vision Corp.
Prize sponsor: Technical Documentation Consultants of Arizona

Best Team Leadership 1 • $250
CUVOPS IV: cooperative unmanned vehicle operations planning system
Design team: Elizabeth Gyek-Li (winner), Mitchell Kim, Paul Vazquez, Brent McFarland, Richard Phillips, David Warnes
Project sponsor: BAE Systems San Diego
Prize sponsor: Honeywell

Best Team Leadership 2 • $250
Precious gem classifier
Design team: Gabriel Brewer (winner), Joseph Brewer, Mona Eskandari, Julia Harden, Craig Oliver, Monica Rainey
Project sponsor: Alternative Vision Corp.
Prize sponsor: Honeywell

Excellence in Testing and Validation • $500
UA Baja drivetrain
Design team: Josh Spivey, Andrew Sims, Harrison Roberts, Ahmed Al-Binali, Alexandra Hartz, Cade Wilson, Aaron Saint-Amour
Project sponsor: UA Baja Racing
Prize sponsor: Sargent Aerospace & Defense

Fish Out of Water, First Place • $250
Precious gem classifier
Design team: Julia Harden (winner), Gabriel Brewer, Joseph Brewer, Mona Eskandari, Craig Oliver, Monica Rainey
Project sponsor: Alternative Vision Corp.
Prize sponsor: Kristy Pearson

Fish Out of Water, Second Place • $150
Device for measuring the center of gravity of large industrial equipment
Design team: Paul Gastreich and Katherine Palazzo (winners), Kevin Maghran, Mike Malin, Jared Wagoner
Project sponsor: Bruker Corp.
Prize sponsor: Kristy Pearson


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