RULES FOR THE 1996 INTERNATIONAL AERIAL ROBOTICS COMPETITION

Table of Contents
  1. General Rules Governing Entries
  2. The Mission
  3. Scoring
  4. "Air Vehicle" Definition and Attributes
  5. Judging
  6. Grounds for Disqualification
  7. Prize Awards
  8. Schedule
  9. Figure 1: Radioactive Label
  10. Figure 2: Biohazard Label
  11. Figure 3: Typical Drum Placement Configuration
  12. Figure 4: Disk Geometry
  13. Figure 5: Arena Layout (revised for EPCOT)
  14. Journal Paper Format Example

    GENERAL RULES GOVERNING ENTRIES

     See the arena layout
  1. Vehicles must be unmanned and autonomous. They must compete based on their ability to sense the semi-structured environment of the Competition Arena. They may be intelligent or preprogrammed, but they must not be flown by a remote human operator.
  2. Computational power need not be carried by the air vehicle. Computers operating from standard commercial power may be set up outside the Competition Arena foul-line boundary and uni- or bi-directional data may be transmitted to/from the air vehicle.
  3. Data links will be by radio, infrared, acoustic, or other means so long as no tethers are employed. The air vehicles must be free-flying with no entangling encumbrances, however, tethered subvehicles are allowed. Subvehicle(s) must be attached permanently to the autonomous air vehicle at all times. Subvehicles must themselves be autonomous. They may be deployed within the arena to search for, and/or acquire the information or objects. Subvehicles may not operate outside of the arena.
  4. Any form of propulsion is acceptable if deemed safe in preliminary AUVSI review.
  5. Air vehicles may be no larger than a 10-foot (side) cube when operational.
  6. Intention to compete must be received no later than October 23, 1995. To avoid unnecessary delay due to the mail (particularly for international entries), a letter of intention to compete can be transmitted by FAX to Robert C. Michelson, AUVSI Technical Chairman at (770)528-3271. The completed original application form can follow by mail, but must be received no later than Monday, November 6, 1995. A brief concept outline describing the air vehicle must be submitted at that time for safety review by AUVSI (the application form provides space for this). AUVSI will either confirm that the submitting team is a qualified competitor, or will suggest safety improvements that must be made in order to qualify.

    A VHS video tape of your vehicle flying either autonomously or under remote human pilot control must be supplied by March 1, 1996 to continue to be considered as a serious entry.

    A research peaper describing your entry will be due by June 1, 1996 (see rule No. 6-9).

    The competition will be held at Walt Disney World's EPCOT Center in Orlando, Florida on Monday, July 15, 1996(with Tuesday, July 16 as a "rain day"). Prize money will be awarded during a ceremony at the AUVSI national symposium being held July 16 - 18 at Disney World's Contemporary Resort.

  7. Teams may be comprised of a combination of students, faculty, industrial partners, or gorvernment partners. Studenst may be undergraduate and/or graduate students. Inter-disciplinary teams are encouraged (EE, AE, ME, etc.). Members from industry, government agencies (or universities, in the case of faculty) may participate, however full-time students must be associated with each team. Participants must be enrolled at their schools for at least 12 credit hours or more per quarter/semester during winter and spring 1996 to be considered "students". The student members of a joint team must make significant contributions to the development of their entry. Only the student component of each team will be eligible for the cash awards.

    THE MISSION
      • Location and remediation of toxic waste in industrialized nations is a major problem. Even with environmental laws that prescribe the correct handling of toxic waste materials, unethical companies often secretly dispose of their waste products in unapproved and dangerous ways. In addition, large amounts of toxic waste are known to have been disposed of improperly prior to environmental legislation. In either case, the location and composition of the waste is often unknown. Investigation of toxic waste sites is a dangerous job that is well suited to unmanned systems.

      • Your mission is to create an aerial robot that can map a (simulated) toxic waste dump containing both radioactive and biohazardous materials. This toxic waste dump consists of five 25- to 55-gallon steel or plastic drums containing either radioactive material or biohazardous material. The drums will appear to be either fully exposed or partially buried. The location of each drum is unknown, other than it is within the boundaries of the arena and no closer than three meters to any arena boundary. You do not know the number of drums containing radioactive material versus biohazardous material. Your aerial robot will be able to determine this from labels on each drum (visible from above, regardless of drum orientation).

      • Figure 1 and Figure 2 show the two types of identifying labels. The labels will be a white image on black background (the negative of what is depicted in Figure 1 and Figure 2 , but the same size -- IMPORTANT: the orientation will be random and the labels will conform to the upper survace of the drum in whatever position it is found to be in).

      • Figure 3 shows a typical drum arrangement (the actual arrangement on the day of the competition will be different, but in all cases the contents of each drum will be indicated on its upper surface -- viewable from directly above). Your map must identify the location of drums relative to the starting corner of the arena. The map must be generated only by data gathered from the air vehicle and must be presented to an accuracy of one meter. The contents of each drum identified must be indicated on the map.

      • The map may be telemetered from the aerial robot to a ground station in real time or new drum locations may be stored on board as they are found, for subsequent downloading to a ground station after landing.

      • One of the drums containing biohazardous material will also have a (simulated) contaminated disk resting on it. If possible, this disk should be retrieved as a sample, and returned to the starting location. The details of the construction of this disk are shown in Figure 4.

    2. All air vehicles must start from the designated starting area. Take-off must be autonomous. Only two members from the team may be within the boundaries of the Competition Arena once attempts to start the vehicle begin. From lift-off until the end of the round, all team members must remain outside the Competition Arena.

      • Teams will be allotted 60 minutes to complete the task. Each team will be assigned a specific 60-minute time slot in which they must set up and perform as many attempts as the wish. Judges will score each valid attempt, with the highest score being used to determine the winner.

      • To accommodate the number of competing teams within a reasonable time, the arena will be occupied by up to four teams (one at each corner) as shown in Figure 5. Note that this paragraph has been amended in accordance with this IMPORTANT reference. The arrangement of the drums within each arena will be similar, as will the drums themselves. Non-flight activities such as set-up, calibration, and take-down will be performed simultaneously by the three teams occupying the arenas and will count against the allotted 60 minutes to complete the task. The arenas will be cleared of practicing teams 30 minutes prior to the start of the performance judging on the morning of the competition.

      • Upon notice that a team is ready to fly, the clocks will be stopped for the other two teams and the field will be cleared except for the designeated officials and two members of the currently flying team. Once that run is complete, the other teams may return to their on-field activities and the clocks will be allowed to continue. After 60 minutes of arena time, a new team will be allowed to take control of the arena and the clock for that arena will be reset.

      • A round will be declared a valid try if the vehicle leaves the starting area.

    4. Teams may have no more than one entry. Only one team may be affiliated with any particular university.

    5. Air vehicles must stay aloft at all times except in the starting area where landing is permissible. Subvehicles, if used, must be tethered to the air vehicle at all times. Tethers may touch the ground anywhere in the arena, however subvehicles may only touch the ground in the vicinity of the drums (defined as within one meter of a drum). Subvehicles may operate on the drums themselves however the air vehicle may not latch onto or touch the drums. A run will be terminated if any part of an air vehicle touches the ground outside of the starting area.

      Scoring

       The score will be based on a number of factors as follows:

        Effectiveness Measures:
      1. 100 points for each drum location correctly identified (a), plus an additional 100 points for identifying the contents of each drum located (a').

      2. The elapsed time (b) between autonomous take-off ( leaving the starting area ) and autonomous landing measured in seconds and subtracted from the total score during a given round.

      3. Successfully leaving the starting area and demonstrating intelligent autonomous navigation for not less than 30 seconds (c) is worth 100 points.

      4. Successful "sample" disk acquisition from a biohazard drum (d) is worth 300 points. A disk dropped within 3 meters of the drum does not count as a successful acquisition.

      5. Successful completion of the entire mission (e) is worth 500 points. This includes autonomous take-off, flight, accurate mapping of all five drums, identification of the contents of each drum (radioactive or biohazard), retrieval of the contaminated sample disk, and autonomous landing back in the starting area.

        Subjective Measures:

      6. Elegance of design and craftsmanship (f) on a scale of zero to 30 (highest).
        1. Component integration (0-10).
        2. Craftsmanship (0-10).
        3. Durability (0-10).

      7. Innovation in air vehicle design (g) on a scale of zero to 70 (highest).
        1. Primary propulsion mechanism {lift} (0-10).
        2. Attitude adjustment scheme {yaw/pitch/roll/lateral} (0-10).
        3. Navigation technique (0-30).
        4. Drum identification technique (0-10).
        5. Disk retrieval mechanism/scheme (0-10).

      8. Safety of design to bystanders (h) on a scale of zero to 200 (highest).
        1. Isolation.shielding of propulsors (0-50).
        2. Containment of fuel and exhaust by-products (0-25).
        3. Crashworthiness (0-25).
        4. Emergency flight termination mechanisms (0-100).

      9. Each team is required to submit a journal-quality paper (written in English) documenting its project. This paper (i) is worth between 50 and 100 points depending on technical quality. Papers are limited to 10 pages (including figures and references, if any). The format shall be single-sided with text occupying a space no greater than 9 inches tall by 6.5 inches wide on each page. Font size shall be 12 point (serif font) with 14 point leading. The example format is provided with the rules (see example format). Topics to be covered include: competitive strategy, how your vehicle design achieves your strategy, propulsion, stability augmentation schemes, navigation schemes, drum identification schemes, and "sample" disk retrieval mechanism. Five copies of your paper are due to the application submission address by June 1, 1996.

      10. Best team Tee Shirt (j) (10 points to the best).

      In addition to the points scored during the Static Judging ( Subjective Measures), the teams will be rank-ordered by the judges based on score. The arenas (1,2, or 3) and time slots will be allocated based upon the choice of the teams, with the first choice going to the highest ranked team, the next choice going to the second highest ranked team, and so on until the final time and arena remaining is assigned to the team ranking lowest based on the Subjective Measures during the Static Judging.

      The points for a given round will be totalled according to the following formula:


      SCORE = a + a' - b + c + d + e + f + g + h + i + j

      The highest score accumulated by any entry after all rounds have been completed will be declared the winner.

      "Air Vehicle" Definition and Attributes
      1. "Air Vehicles" are considered to be those capable of sustained flight out of ground effect while requiring the earth's atmosphere as a medium of interaction to achieve lift (as such, pogo sticks and similar momentary ground-contact vehicles are not considered to be flying air vehicles). The scoring formula and arena have been carefully designed to normalize advantages ingerent to a given class of air vehicles such that all may compete fairly to perform the same task. Prospective teams must decide how best to allocate resources to maximize their potintial score in light of the constraints imposed by the arena, the task, and the scoring algorithm.

      2. Air vehicles may not latch onto or use anything in the arena for locomotion or stability. Vehicles crossing over the foul line will be disqualified for that run and must be returned to the starting area.

      3. Each air vehicle must be equipped with an independently-powered, independently-controlled, non-pyrotechnic termination mechanism that can render the vehicle ballistic upon command of the judges (e.g., if using R/C radio equipment, a separate battery and receiver must serve as the independent relay for the onboard flight termination signal). This termination mechanism must be demonstrated to the judges prior to the first round. Air vehicles may be landed under manual control of a safety pilot in the event of an emergency, but the points that could be awarded for that run will be forfeited. Both autonomous and manually-assisted landings must occur within the foul lines of the Competition Arena.

      Judging
      1. A team of three judges will determine compliance with all rules. Official times and measures will be determined by the judges. Subjective measures (6-10) will be judged in accordance with a schedule to be announced a week prior to the competition. Team papers will be ranked and scores assigned to them at this time.

      Grounds for Disqualification
      1. Vehicles crossing over the foul line will be disqualified for that run only.

      2. Judges will disqualify any vehicle which appears to be a safety hazard.

      3. Intentional interference with a competitor's run will result in disqualification of the offending contestant's entry.

      4. Damaging the Competition Arena, disks, or navigation aids may result in disqualification.

      5. Actions designed to damage or destroy an opponent's vehicle are not in the spirit of the competition and will result in disqualification of the offending contestant's entry.

      Prize Awards
      1. Up to $10,000 will be awarded to the team having the highest score achieved during any fully autonomous round in which a drum is correctly located, identified, and the "sample" disk is successfully retrieved. In the event that no air vehicle is capable of successfully locating even a single drum during any round, the method of prize money distribution will be at the discretion of the judges -- however any partial awards resulting shall not exceed $1,000 per award with the total allocated to such partial awards not to exceed $5,000.

      2. Up to $10,000 Cash tuition award to winning student team members.

      3. International recognition for the winning student's university.

      4. International recognition through AUVSI for the winning industrial/government/faculty organization.

      5. Free full-page advertisement for the winning company, governmental agency, or university faculty department in Unmanned Systems magazine. If more than one industrial/government/academic entity is supporting the team, then the student component shall designate which partner has supplied the greatest assistance (in whatever form), and that partner shall receive the free full-page advertisement.

      6. Special recognition to the winning team (the one qualified team receiving the highest cumulative point score) at AUVSI '96 to be held at Walt Disney World's Contemporary Resort in Orlando, Florida and will include free attendance to the symposium and awards ceremony for up to 10 team members, an invitation to display the winning air vehicle in the exhibit hall, and the opportunity to present a paper to the unmanned vehicle community detailing winning design and construction strategies. Other competing teams will receive two complimentary registrations to the symposium. Other benefits such as discounts, media opportunities, and gifts may be forthcoming to those who compete. Any such benefits will be announced at, or before the competition, and may be based on final rankings.

        All teams are invited to submit papers describing their designs and strategies by submitting them for presentation in one of the air vehicle sessions by the regular submission deadline. Also, exhibit space can be made available to all teams wishing to showcase their tehnology at the symposium by contacting AUVSI headquarters. (Teams having their entries on display in the exhibit hall have found this to be a good way to make further contacts for their universities and for themselves as graduates).

        Schedule

         REMEMBER THESE IMPORTANT DATES: 
        Notification of intention to compete ............... October 23, 1995
        
Application Deadline ............................... November 6, 1995
        
VHS Video of air vehicle flying ....................... March 1, 1996
        
Journal quality paper .................................. June 1, 1996
        
Static Judging two days prior to the competition ...... July 13, 1996
        
Practice Day on the arena ............................. July 14, 1996
        
Performance judging (i.e. "the competition") .......... July 15, 1996
        
Rain-day for performance testing ...................... July 16, 1996
        
AUVSI Symposium in Orlando, Florida ................ July 16-18, 1996