The Czech team officially participated in the competition under the Fly4Future banner. This venture was established in 2017 as a spin-out of the MRS FEE CTU research group. From the research group, researchers Assoc. Prof. Martin Saska and Dr. Tomáš Báča, who both work at FEE CTU and co-founded Fly4Future, participated in the competition, as well as FEE CTU students, Ing. Michal Werner, Ing. Tomáš Musil, Bc. David Čapek and Bc. Ondřej Franek, who were invited to join the team for their expertise. They had no competition in the final and won the competition by a large margin.
The competition scenario was motivated by a search and rescue task; the drone had to reach the desired location completely autonomously, pick up a 20x20x20 cm object weighing 1.5 kg and move it to another location. The weight of the flying robot itself could also not exceed 25 kg. The competition route was unique with its length of 9.5 km and very challenging terrain that reflected real-life conditions; the route led between buildings, through the forest, under a bridge and through a water wall. As the drones could not use GPS signals, they oriented themselves by 25 pre-determined stations, which were marked with a flag and a smoke bomb. Then, at the end of the route, individual packages were placed, from which the drone had to autonomously select the one that belonged to its team using on-board cameras.
Before the final race, however, test flights were held at the air base, where the individual teams fine-tuned their solutions. "The competition was exciting from the very beginning. The very first day of the test flights took place in heavy rain and our team was the only one of all the competitors who dared to test the autonomous system in these conditions. This earned us admiration and bonus points from the organizers. In the following days, the testing of individual sections of the flight route took place, in which we also excelled and demonstrated that our system is capable of completing all the tasks," says the team leader, Dr. Tomáš Báča.
The team from MRS FEE CTU and Fly4Future was practically the only team that managed to complete most of the route entirely autonomously and without the GPS signal, thus securing the victory. However, the Czech victorious campaign did not occur without complications. After identifying the third waypoint, their drone encountered a hardware problem. This probably happened because a new unique prototype was built for this competition and the team did not have the opportunity to test it as thoroughly as Fly4Future normally does with their products. So, under heavy load, the drone's motor failed, and the drone fell to the ground and broke. "Luckily, it fell into wet grass, but one whole arm was stuck in the ground and it was quite difficult to pull it out. At first, we thought we would have to give up the competition, but then we decided to try to repair the drone," says Assoc. Prof. Martin Saska about the accident, which at first seemed fatal. However, thanks to the great cooperation of the team members, they managed to disassemble the entire drone, replace the broken components and reassemble the drone in a record 30 minutes. The drone was then able to return to the race and successfully complete the route.
Overall, the task of the competition was extremely demanding and in the time limit of two hours and using only one battery, it was almost impossible to accomplish everything the organizers required. During the final, they then acknowledged that the competition was designed in such a way that it was virtually unsolvable with the current technology, the given budget and within the given time limit. Therefore, the Czech team along with the other teams were allowed to change the battery during the competition so that the drone could continue in the competition. Even so, their winning solution is a great progress. "Thanks to our participation in the competition, we have created a truly unique system that is already in demand by clients. Several industrial partners are now focusing on flying without GPS, so this is a very hot topic now that not only the defence industry but also the civilian industry is aware of," explains Assoc. Prof. Saska, who is also the head of the MRS research group at FEE CTU. During the competition, German investors and those interested in this technology had the opportunity to see that Fly4Future, in cooperation with FEE CTU, can build basically any drone that surpasses other solutions with its extraordinary characteristics.
But the competition is of course also beneficial from an academic and scientific point of view. Among the participants, there were also several top universities from Germany, which could see how advanced the systems developed at FEE CTU are. The participating students from FEE CTU will also find the competition a great help in their studies and research. "Our system was tested in extreme conditions and over such a large area which we could hardly use in civilian conditions. We have gained valuable knowledge about what research and technology we need to focus on next," adds Dr. Báča. Thus, it can be expected that many scientific articles and publications will emerge from this project, especially on the topic of artificial intelligence and long-range path localisation and mapping.
The team from Fly4Future and FEE CTU has been working on its solution since the beginning of 2024 when it was selected for the competition. Then in April, 14 teams presented their results in the first round, also held at the Erding Air Base, and 9 finalists emerged. At the meeting, the researchers also had the opportunity to network and share know-how, just like at the final in Bavaria, which took place during the week of 16th to 20th September. The organiser is the German Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation SPRIND (Bundesagentur für Sprunginnovationen), which promotes innovation and breakthrough technologies in various sectors through competitions, project challenges, and other tools. This time, the focus was on fully autonomous flying robots, as is evident from its name, SPRIND Funke Fully Autonomous Flight. This area of research has great potential for future use in, for example, transport, security or rescue operations, and therefore participation was financially supported by the organisers. During the competition, the teams shared up to 70,000 euros between them in the first phase, and then up to 80,000 euros in the second phase. These funds were earmarked for research and development so that the emergence of innovative technologies would not fail due to the lack of funding.
