2016 Medical Express

THIS EVENT IS NOW OVER – STAY TUNED FOR ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE NEXT EVENT

The 2016 Teams

You can see the 2016 team list and the links to the team webpages and social media sites here.

Competition News

The 2016 Medical Express is now over. You can read a summary of Day 1 here, Day 2 here and Day 3 here.
Accommodation list for the Dalby area available here
Version 4 of the Rules was published (8 April 2016) – very minor correction relating to availability of a grass runway at The base.
Sample mission boundary file was made available (6 March 2016)

FAQ

There is an FAQ page where commonly asked questions are posted and answered by the UAV Challenge Technical Committee. Before contacting the Technical Committee with questions, please read the FAQ carefully. If you can not find the answer you are looking for, then please email the Technical Committee at uavchallenge@gmail.com

The 2016 Mission Task

Outback Joe is at his property close to the town of Dalby in remote Queensland, Australia and has been feeling unwell. He has had a remote consultation with his doctor using video conferencing, and his doctor has requested some blood tests be done as soon as possible. Joe is well prepared, has a home sample taking kit, and has taken his blood sample. The challenge is now to get the blood sample to the lab. Joe’s property is very remote and to make matters worse, it has been cut off by floodwaters.

Teams are invited to attempt to retrieve a blood sample from the remote Outback Joe and return it The Base where medical staff will be waiting to analyse it. Teams must deploy unmanned aircraft to Joe’s location, and then return a sample bottle from him utilising a remote landing and takeoff site close to him. They must complete all of this within one hour.

An example layout for the Geofence areas of the Medical Express competition.

Deliverables

Entrants are required to submit a short technical report (known as Deliverable 1) that describes the proposed system design and safety considerations. Later a more detailed technical report is required (Deliverable 2) that outlines a team’s design approach, methodology for remote landing, and operational and safety procedures along with a flight demonstration video was submitted. Finally an Autonomous Flight Record that documented a minimum of five hours of autonomous flight has to be provided along with a Safety Case document (Deliverable 3). The top-twenty teams that pass the Deliverable 3 checkpoint will be invited to the competition.

Scoring

Points will be awarded based on the mission performance including the accuracy of the remote landing, technical documentation, and the team’s answers to questions from the judges prior to the mission.

A VTOL Unmanned Aircraft competing at the 2014 UAV Challenge

The Prize

The team to achieve the highest points total and have also completed the mission, and after the competition is complete, will be declared the winner and will receive A$ 50,000.

The team achieving the highest points total, whether or not they have completed the mission, will be awarded the Rod Walker Trophy, presented in memory of Professor Rod Walker, co-founder of the UAV Challenge.

Event Location

The UAV Challenge Medical Express 2016 event will be held at the Dalby Model Aero Club, 743 Cecil Plains Road, Dalby, Queensland, Australia. This will be the location of The Base.

Bublcam images of The Base location are available here, and here.

Rules and other files relating to the UAV Challenge Medical Express (2016)