The University of Bath’s student drone team — Team Bath Drones — was awarded the SESAR special prize at the European Robotics League 2019 in Seville (Spain) at the end of last month, in recognition of its technical innovations to ensure safe access to airspace for drones and aerial robots.

Teams were challenged to demonstrate how their technology can enable high levels of autonomy in aerial robots.

Each drone was required to pass across several way-points without colliding with any obstacles and while detecting and avoiding non-cooperative drones — without any intervention from a human operator.

The more obstacles and non-cooperative drones the aerial robot detected and avoided, the more points each team received — with the Bath students scoring the most points and therefore winning the prize.

Team Bath Drones (www.teambathdrones.com), which is made up of a multi-disciplinary group of students from the Aerospace, and Integrated Mechanical & Electrical Engineering degree programmes at Bath, competes annually at a number of international drone competitions.

Freddie Sherratt, Team Bath Drones project leader, said: “Entering the European Robotics League was a fantastic experience, with the SESAR prize capping off an extremely enjoyable week.

“This is the first time we’ve entered the ERL, and despite having the smallest team, we have once again proved our quality.

“I look forward to seeing how we can further improve our drone for the next event.”

Pejman Iravani, senior lecturer in robotics and autonomous systems and Team Bath Drones academic advisor, said: “The SESAR challenge tries to address one of the main problems when integrating UAVs into shared airspace — collision avoidance in a dynamic environment.

“Only by developing advanced ‘sense and avoid’ technologies will it be possible to exploit the full potential of UAVs for commercial applications.”