Under a hot summer sun in Maryland, a Schulich School of Engineering student team soared at another successful flight competition.
The Schulich Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (SUAV) team took their talents south of the border for the annual Student Unmanned Aerial Systems (SUAS) Competition.
Photo Submitted by the SUAV team
After months of practice and preparation, the University of Calgary contingent finished in second place out of 49 teams for both its technical design report and team website, and 34th for mission demonstration.
"This team is seriously impressive," says Dr. Schuyler Hinman, BSC (Eng)'13, PhD'17, an advisor and assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering. "They had to design a drone from scratch that was capable of autonomously mapping a 10-acre area and completing targeted payload drops."
The team documented their journey with a video series to capture some of their lessons learned as they start preparations for their next competitions.
Setting lofty expectations
The SUAV team was no stranger to strong performances at the international competition.
They were ranked as the top Canadian team in both 2023 and 2024, and were looking to replicate that performance this summer.
The team started recruiting new members last September, with their drone development starting in October while flight testing began in March before they started fine-tuning for the June competition.
"Our 60-plus member team is organized into three groups: avionics (software, electrical and geomatics), mechanical, and business," says SUAV president Liam Mah, a fourth-year student in the Department of Electrical and Software Engineering. "Development follows three phases: design, manufacturing and integration, and iterative testing, where we refine based on real-world performance."
He says the team performed more than 100 km of test flights of the aircraft, named ORCA, in the Calgary area before going to the competition.
Booking flights for 2026
While the team felt prepared going into Maryland, Mah says Mother Nature had other plans.
They experienced fatigue under an extremely humid 39ºC heat and their equipment was pushed in elements that couldn't be replicated at home.
"For example, the hot glue we used to secure control surface servo motors began to melt, causing us to lose control of some critical components," Mah says. "The heat also pushed our flight computer and motor beyond its limit, which was way beyond what we had tested in Calgary."
He says the team learned some key lessons on budgeting time for recovery from setbacks and crashes.
"We can over-engineer to have a reliable system that is capable of handling unexpected stressors like heat," says Mah.
While the flight performance didn't go as planned, the team's technical design report and website creation put them in first overall for deliverable submissions, a real feather in their cap.
It has inspired the team to work even harder in the coming year as they look ahead to their next venture: the CSU - California Unmanned Aerial Systems Competition (C-UASC) in June 2026.
"We can't wait to show what we can do again on the international stage," Mah says. "Our focus will be on fixed-wing aircraft since they offer more interesting design challenges than multirotor aircraft."
He says work is already underway to make aerodynamic, payload, avionics and software improvements while also exploring the potential of vertical take off and landing concepts.
Learn more about the Schulich UAV team and follow their journey on Instagram.
