The UAV Challenge - Outback Rescue, also known as the UAV Outback Challenge or UAV Challenge, is an annual competition for the development of unmanned aerial vehicles. The competition was first held in 2007 and features an open challenge for adults, and a high-school challenge. The event is aimed at promoting the civilian use of unmanned aerial vehicles and the development of low-cost systems that could be used for search and rescue missions. The event is one of the largest robotics challenges in the world and one of the highest stakes UAV challenges, with the 2018 Medical Express version of the event offering $75,000 to the winner.
The events involve a thorough scoring system with an emphasis on safety, capability and technical excellence. In particular there is a strong tendency towards autonomous flight. Notably, teams share technical details of their entries, allowing successful innovations to proliferate and increasing the speed of technological development.
The format of the Challenge changes as technological improvements make the tasks more achievable. In 2011 it changed to a search and rescue challenge. No teams successfully completed the challenge until 2014 when several teams were successful. In 2016 the open challenge changed to an automated medical retrieval task known as Medical Express and it was almost completed in 2016 and 2018. The UAV Challenge was not held in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, and the challenge did not return after pandemic.
Challenges
Medical Express Challenge (2015-2018) The Medical Express Challenge is the current event that is open to all. It was first held between 2015 and 2016 with the first event held in Dalby, Queensland, Australia in September 2016. The current Medical Express runs from 2017 to 2018 with the event again being held in Dalby. The challenge itself is for teams to develop a solution to the problem of remote medical retrieval. Teams have to fly their aircraft at least to a remote farm, detect the farmer Outback Joe and autonomously land close by. The farmer places a medical sample into the aircraft and it must then return to the original launch point which is at least away. The challenge was very nearly completed at the first attempt by a team from Canberra, Australia called Canberra UAV. Their communications relay aircraft crashed at the remote farm site due to an engine failure and the challenge was hence not completed. But their main aircraft did successfully return the medical sample from the farm.
Search and Rescue Challenge (2011-2014) The Search and Rescue Challenge was held from 2011 to 2014. It was open to worldwide participation, including by universities and hobbyists. In the challenge, teams must find a target dummy, called Outback Joe and accurately deliver an emergency package to him. The backstory of Joe is that he is a bushwalker that has gotten lost, or a worker whose ute has broken down. He is represented by a 50 kg mannequin dressed in jeans, a work shirt, work boots and an Akubra. The mission area is nearly from the airport and is approximately x . Teams must not fly greater than above ground level (AGL). Under the rules, teams were required to firstly identify the latitude and longitude of the target to within 100 meters. Teams that succeeded in this task were permitted to attempt to drop the package and complete the challenge.
Outback Joe was first spotted in 2010 by the University of North Dakota team. In 2012, the Canberra UAV team's aircraft automatically located the target the first fully automatic detection during all events. In 2014, five teams correctly identified the target location allowing them to drop a package to him. The winner of the challenge was CanberraUAV, who dropped a water bottle to within 2.6 metres of the target.
Airborne Delivery Challenge The Airborne delivery challenge is open to Australian high school students. The objective is to create a future generation of aerospace professionals with a focus on UAVs.
An airframe has to be built and the mission is executed by two persons who will not communicate during the mission and will have technological targeting solutions in place: UAV Controller in charge of piloting the airframe (or programming the mission in case of the Robotic challenge) Mission manager in charge of the mission package drop Other team members are permitted and many teams have roles for a team manager, media manager and safety manager.
In 2009 and 2010 a Robot Airborne Delivery Challenge was also held in parallel to the main Airborne Delivery Challenge. The Robot competition was dropped in 2011 in favor of bonus points for autonomous payload dropping in the Airborne Delivery Challenge.
Rod Walker Trophy
The first place team in the open competition receives the Rod Walker Trophy. The trophy is named in honour of Rodney Walker (QUT), who conceived of the idea of the UAV Outback Challenge in 2005 along with Jonathan Roberts and George Curran of CSIRO. Rod Walker, a professor at Queensland University of Technology, died in October 2011, aged 42. A memorial fund was set up to support individuals and organisations that try to enhance the use of UAVs for civilian purposes.
Past winners of the Rod Walker Trophy 2018 Monash UAS 2016 Canberra UAV 2014 Canberra UAV 2012 Canberra UAV
The Kingaroy Triangle The term The Kingaroy Triangle was coined during the second UAV Challenge event in 2008 when it was noticed that aircraft and systems that had worked perfectly well before the UAV Challenge suddenly appeared to have problems at Kingaroy. The term is a reference to the more famous Bermuda Triangle and also a reference to the general shape of the competition boundary area, which is roughly triangular in nature.
Annual challenges
2007 competition The first event was held between September 24 and 27. It attracted interest from 43 teams from 6 countries of whom 20 submitted full entries. No teams passed flight scrutineering although Team Dionysus from the USA did demonstrate some autonomous flight at the airport. MUROC I, a high school team from Mueller College, won the inaugural Payload Delivery Challenge.
ChallengeGrand prizeWinnersEncouragement awards Search and Rescue Challenge A$40,000.00 (not completed) Dionysus High School Payload Delivery Challenge A$10,000.00 MUROC I (Mueller College) N/A Search and Rescue Documentary Challenge N/A Dionysus N/A High School Documentary Challenge N/A MUROC Combined N/A
In 2007 the UAV Challenge was organised by the Australian Research Centre for Aerospace Automation (a five-year-long partnership between CSIRO and Queensland University of Technology), the Queensland State Government, and Boeing Defence Australia.
2008 competition The 2008 UAV Outback Challenge was held between September 22 and 24 and had a combined prize fund of A$70,000. The prize for completing the Search and Rescue Challenge was increased to A$50,000. 51 teams from 8 different countries expressed an interest in entering with 17 finally qualifying for the event. As in 2007, teams failed to complete the Search and Rescue mission, with only Team Telemasters and Missouri S&T UAV teams passing the stringent flight scrutineering to begin the S & R Mission. Missouri S&T crashed on takeoff, and Team Telemasters aborted shortly after takeoff. No flights left the airport for the search area.
ChallengeGrand prizeWinnersEncouragement awards Search and Rescue Challenge A$50,000.00 (not completed) Telemasters (A$5,000), Missouri S&T UAV Team (A$3,000), QUT SRUAV 08 (A$1,000), Missouri S&T UAV Team (A$500) High School Payload Delivery Challenge A$10,000.00 Mueller College - MUROC Bush Pilots TSHS Mt Lofty (A$500) Search and Rescue Documentary Challenge A$8,000.00 Mueller College - MUROC Bush Masters N/A High School Documentary Challenge A$2,000.00 Brisbane Boys’ College – Bash, Burn and Crash N/A
In 2008 the UAV Challenge was organised by the Australian Research Centre for Aerospace Automation (a five-year-long partnership between CSIRO and Queensland University of Technology), the Queensland State Government, and Boeing Defence Australia.
2009 competition The 2009 UAV Challenge was announced in the December/January 2008 issue of Aviation Business Asia Pacific magazine. The 2009 event took place between September 28 and October 1. The combined challenge award funds were A$70,000.00. 34 Search and Rescue teams from 5 countries expressed an interest in entering with 12 finally qualifying for the event. In addition to the traditional Search and Rescue Challenge and Airborne Delivery Challenge, there was a new Robot Airborne Delivery Challenge open to high-school students. The two separate documentary challenges of the previous years were combined into a single Documentary Challenge.
2009 was the first year that teams managed to enter the search area. Team Galah suffered an engine shutdown just inside the search area and made an emergency landing less than from Outback Joe (although they were not aware of this at the time). Team Melbourne UAV were en route to the search area when high wind conditions flipped their aircraft causing it to enter flight termination mode. The airframe was lost due to high impact with the ground.
ChallengeGrand prizeWinnersEncouragement awards Search and Rescue Challenge A$50,000.00 (not completed) Melbourne UAV (A$7,500), Team Galah (A$7,500) Robot Airborne Delivery Challenge A$10,000.00 Look mAh! No Hands!, Brisbane Grammar School - Airborne Delivery Challenge A$5,000.00 Cloud 9, Aviation High Wynnum North State High School (A$500) Documentary challenge A$5,000.00 Melbourne UAV N/A
In 2009 the UAV Challenge was organised by the Australian Research Centre for Aerospace Automation (a five-year-long partnership between CSIRO and Queensland University of Technology), the Queensland State Government, and Boeing Defence Australia.
2010 competition The 2010 UAV Challenge took place between September 27 and 29. In the Search and Rescue competition a team from the University of North Dakota became the first in UAV Challenge history to successfully locate Outback Joe, managing to pinpoint his location to within (from AGL). However, they failed to drop a water bottle within (as required by the rules) and hence did not win the A$50,000 prize. Team Robota, from Texas, was awarded second place after their aircraft successfully entered the search area but had to abort the mission due to a technical issue. A total of 43 teams entered the Search and Rescue competition with 12 qualifying to fly but only six flying at the event.
ChallengeGrand prizeWinnersEncouragement awards Search and Rescue Challenge A$50,000.00 (not completed) First Place: University of North Dakota (A$15,000), Second Place: Team Robota (A$5,000) Robot Airborne Delivery Challenge A$10,000.00 (not completed) - Airborne Delivery Challenge A$5,000.00 Calamvale Hornets - Documentary challenge A$5,000.00 Latitude 38 UAV N/A
In 2010 the UAV Challenge was organised by ARCAA (QUT and CSIRO), Queensland Government and Aviation Development Australia Limited. It was sponsored by Insitu, CASA, Australian Defence Magazine, AUVS-Australia, Boeing, CAE Inc. and South Burnett Regional Council.
2011 competition (new format) On 16 March 2011, the UAV Challenge organizers announced major changes to the format of the Challenges. Stated changes included a new longer format Search and Rescue Challenge that results in an event at Kingaroy being held every two years instead of every year (as was done from 2007 to 2010) and the development of Australian State Championships for the Airborne Delivery Challenge. The organizers were quoted as saying that they believe this will lead to "more participants competing with a very high standard of UAV capability".