Sydney student's UAV autopilot wins global award

University of Sydney robotics researcher and PhD candidate at the Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR) Daniel Wilson has been awarded first place in the 2014 International Simulink Challenge.

Wilson developed ‘Skymaster’, an autopilot for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), using MathWorks’ Simulink Software. Wilson chose UAV autonomous formation flight as a focus area because he sees the drone community gaining momentum on a global scale.

“Although many technical and regulatory challenges remain, there’s huge scope for the use of UAV technology in how we communicate, work and go about our daily lives,” said Wilson. “Unlike large commercial organisations, we’ve been able to take a more cavalier and agile approach to tackle those challenges with our research.

“This flexibility allowed us to develop our own low-cost, high-performance and flexible autopilot, which we use to demonstrate the novel multi-UAV guidance, navigation and control algorithms that I’m developing in my research.”

Wilson was one of many students from around the world who participated in the competition, submitting videos that showcased their work and the diverse applications of Simulink software. 

“The International Simulink Challenge is a great initiative for students to demonstrate their innovative projects and applications on a global scale,” said Wilson. “My hope is that future students utilise my work as a platform for their own research, to model and design the next wave of innovative applications for drones.”

Presenting the award to Wilson at the University of Sydney was MathWorks Principal Software Engineer Loren Shure. In Australia to host a series of university seminars, Shure reiterated the importance of project-based learning in tertiary curriculums: “As today’s students prepare to enter the workforce, they will increasingly be expected to have computational skills. The International Simulink Challenge is one way MathWorks is encouraging project-based learning amongst students and allowing them to apply their skills to solving real-world problems.”