On Monday, November 5, the Seattle Chapter hosted a Student Event at the University of Washington’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
The students had a chance to hear a presentation from a student working in the Autonomous Flight Systems Laboratory entitled, “UAS Operation in GPS-Denied Environments Using Multilateration of Aviation Transponders,” presented by Ravi Patel. This presentation was the second half of a project whose first half was also presented at the Seattle Chapter’s 50th Anniversary Symposium in June. The talk detailed the project’s results of using a fixed-wing push-prop UAS with an ADS-B transponder and multilateration receivers to navigate autonomously to specific waypoints without any GPS signals. The audience asked many excellent questions, which served to highlight the robust understanding of the project the students possessed.
Following the presentation, the students were treated to a pizza dinner courtesy of Seattle SFTE and had a chance to interact with SFTE members.