NIBONG TEBAL, 8 July 2023 – Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM)'s Skyscanner team comprised of seven third-year students from the School of Aerospace Engineering has made the university and country proud by becoming the sole representative of Malaysia in the World Drone Competition 2023 to be held at Yokohama, Japan.

USM's School of Aerospace Engineering Dean, Professor Dr. Farzad Ismail said, being the only representative of Malaysia, the team is in high spirits to win in the competition that will take place from 10 to 13 July.

"The 5-kilogram drone is actually meant for the rescue mission, such as flying to the disaster area and providing relief supplies like medications or about 300 grams (g) of food.

"The drone is supposed to travel autonomously without piloting for 16 km one-way and return. After that, it is supposed to survey and report if there is any disaster there and also to drop supplies, if necessary," he told the reporters after the sending-off ceremony of the Skyscanner team to Japan, here last Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Skyscanner team leader, Nur Aisyah Muhamad Shariff said that it took three and a half months to complete the project with the drone capable of achieving up to 90 km per hour and is able to fly for the duration of one hour.

"For the drone to fly autonomously, we did several modifications and system integration, for example on the flight controller, camera, payload compartment, long-range antenna, GPS trackers, and long-term evaluation (LTE) module to be able to view the video footage within the range and beyond it, provided we have good 4G coverage.

“We are aiming for the top two in this competition,” she said.

The World Drone Competition is a contest on research and development of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) carried out all over the world and they are utilised not only for industrial purposes but also for disaster response and saving lives.

This competition is co-sponsored by the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) and the Advanced Robotics Foundation (ARF), which has made significant contributions to the advancement of scientific and technological activities in the field of automated control.

Every three years, IFAC will hold The IFAC World Congress which is the largest event in the field of control science and technology around the world.

Text: Tan Ewe Hoe/Photo: Muhammad Sallehuddin Abdul Hamid