computer science

UAV Outback Challenge

UAV Outback Challenge is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand UAV Outback Challenge rather than just read about it. In short: 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.

Key takeaways

UAV Outback Challenge belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect UAV Outback Challenge to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of UAV Outback Challenge from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

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 20 kilometres (12 mi) 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 20 kilometres (12 mi) 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 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) from the airport and is approximately 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) x 6 kilometres (3.7 mi). Teams must not fly greater than 1,500 feet (460 m) 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.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with UAV Outback Challenge

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what UAV Outback Challenge claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to UAV Outback Challenge before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about UAV Outback Challenge ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of UAV Outback Challenge

In research: UAV Outback Challenge appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses UAV Outback Challenge in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: UAV Outback Challenge is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Awards established in 2007, Challenge awards, Computer science competitions, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for UAV Outback Challenge outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study UAV Outback Challenge in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what UAV Outback Challenge means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain UAV Outback Challenge out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is UAV Outback Challenge in simple terms?

Why does UAV Outback Challenge matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study UAV Outback Challenge?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on UAV Outback Challenge.