A prestigious win

Team Edhitha, comprising a group of multidisciplinary undergraduate students at MS Ramaiah Institute of Technology won the prestigious Student Unmanned Aerial System (SUAS) competition, held from June 17 to 20 2015, in Maryland, USA.

SUAS, organised by the Seafarer Chapter of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), is a competition held to stimulate and foster interest in unmanned systems and technology careers. The team developed its own tactical UAV over the span of a year, which had real time search and rescue operational capabilities.

Team Edhitha was placed first in the flight mission demonstration, fifth in the technical journal paper presentation and fourth in the flight readiness review presentation, thus receiving the winning title of the competition. It won a cash prize of $6900.

Edhitha comprised of Sri Pawan S Rao, Sharath Nairy, Adarsh Joseph, Kamesh Krishnan, Deborshi Goswami, Saurabh Hindlekar, Indhu K, Sankha Karfa, Praneetha Mallela. Dr D Ramesh Rao, professor and head of department of Mechanical Engineering, was the faculty advisor and Vishwanathan Ramanathan, alumni of Mechanical department, was the mentor of the team.

Additional events and interactions included an awards banquet and recruiting opportunities for the students.