The 4th Mini Drone Autonomous Flight Competition Using MATLAB Held

The 4th Mini Drone Autonomous Flight Competition, aimed at expanding the drone industry, was held at BEXCO on Thursday the 13th.

This event, jointly hosted by MathWorks, Kwangwoon University, and the Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers, was held as a second league with the participation of five undergraduate engineering teams and nine graduate student teams.

It was different from previous drone competitions. First of all, the drones were so small that they were barely visible on the screen, and there was no excitement like drone soccer or racing. It was so quiet that I wondered, 'Has it even started?'
Students explained to the judges how they had constructed the program, ran the program, and launched the drone. The key is not to control the drone well, but to construct a 'sensor-based control' algorithm that allows the drone to find the black line and complete the course even if it is blown away by the wind and goes off the rail. The result? No team finished the race.

One of the contestants expressed regret, saying, “Image processing is the most important, but the previous step took too long to finish.” After the judging, a student who came down from the stage shed tears of regret.

Professor Lee Geon-yeong of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Kwangwoon University, the organizer, said, “MATLAB is a modern version of an engineering calculator for engineering students. However, students find it difficult,” and explained the reason for hosting the event, saying, “We thought about how to utilize the necessary industrial mathematics, physics, and programming in MATLAB, and that’s how we came up with the idea of autonomous drone flight.” Professor Lee said, “This is the fourth year that the event has been held, but the difficulty level has increased every year, so the students’ completion rate is similar every year.”
“We have sponsored the competition for three years in agreement with the professor’s goal of fostering MATLAB utilization skills, but it is unfortunate to see students struggling every year,” said Jongmin Lee, CEO of MathWorks. “Next year, we are considering introducing practical engineering education in addition to theory to actively teach students how to use the tools.”

Recently, drone racing, drone soccer, and drone battles are being held in various forms, emphasizing the hardware performance and controllability of drones. The professor explained, “Even though the rapidly increasing number of drone pilots can expand the industrial application fields, if we think about the future of the drone industry, we must focus on developing software technology.”

Professor Lee Geon-yeong: "Drone competitions are increasing like mushrooms, but they are not helpful for technological development" Emphasizes software education

In Korea, drones are being used for business purposes, such as pesticide distribution, but this technology is difficult to introduce to areas such as cracking down on driving on the shoulder of a road, inspecting power plants, and inspecting high-altitude air traffic control systems, so additional technology development is necessary. In particular, in the field of facility diagnosis, there are limits to controlling the drone while watching the video, so autonomous flight technology development is necessary.

CEO Lee Jong-min said, “Recently, the government is also interested in not only the roadmap for supporting drone activation, but also ways to improve technological capabilities. MathWorks will also strive to foster talent by sponsoring various competitions and providing education on how to use MATLAB.”

The results of the competition were gold, silver, bronze, and encouragement awards without a grand prize. The gold award went to Kunsan National University RD and Kwangwoon University HelloDrone, and the silver award went to Kookmin University GPS, Kookmin University ELCO, and Kangwon National University Pat and Mat Team.