What was on board.
Airframe
- Holybro X650 carbon fibre frame
- Quadrotor configuration
Propulsion
- T-Motor MN4014 400 KV (×4)
- T-Motor NS17×5.8 carbon fibre propellers
- T-Motor AIR 40A 2-6S ESC
Power System
- Tattu 6S 22000 mAh 25C LiPo (main)
- Elements 3S 6200 mAh 35C LiPo (payload)
- Holybro PM02D power module
Flight Controller
- Holybro Pixhawk 6X (ICM-45686)
Navigation System
- Holybro M9N GPS
- ArUco marker AprilTags for precision landing
- Survey path planning
Onboard Computer
- Raspberry Pi 4B (8 GB)
Perception Sensors
- Arducam 64MP Autofocus
- DFRobot SEN0001 ultrasonic sensor
Wireless Communications
- Holybro SiK Telemetry Radio V3
- RadioMaster TX16S Mark II, ELRS
- Holybro ELRS RP1 receiver
FPV & Monitoring
- RUSH Solo Tank 5.8G VTX, 1.6 W
- Foxeer Mini Predator 5
- Hawkeye Little Pilot Captain, 10 in
Manipulator & Payload
- DFRobot 5-DOF robotic arm
- 16-channel servo controller board
- Gripper modified for the tin cans
Software Architecture
- PX4 Autopilot with MAVLink
- OpenCV and TensorFlow on the Raspberry Pi
- Object and colour detection
Safety & Recovery
- DroneRetriever DR9 flotation, 6.4 kg lift each
- Waterproof enclosures for water landings
- Manual override by handheld radio or GCS
What it had to solve.
UAV 1.0 flew the two aerial tasks on the RobotX 2024 course and the launch and recovery between them, operating from a boat rather than from a runway.
Search, then geolocate
The search task is not solved by seeing the two objects. It is solved by knowing where they are, and the answer is graded on how close the reported position falls to the truth, in metres. A 64 MP autofocus camera feeds OpenCV and TensorFlow on a Raspberry Pi 4B, flown across the boundary on PX4 survey path planning against an M9N GPS.
Landing back on the boat it launched from
Recovery is the harder half of launch and recovery, and the deck moves in every axis while the aircraft descends onto it. Precision landing runs on ArUco marker AprilTags through PX4, guiding the aircraft onto a dock that is holding station rather than holding still.
Picking up and placing from a hover
Replenishment is a pick-and-place flown in the air: lift a 40 to 45 g tin off a floating helipad and set it inside a target ring on another. A DFRobot 5-DOF arm carries a gripper reworked for the tins, with its inverse kinematics re-solved for the spatial constraints of the X650 frame.
Endurance to attempt a task twice
A 6S 22,000 mAh pack gives over 20 minutes of flight, calculated at more than 40 minutes of hover. That margin is what buys a second attempt at a task instead of one committed pass.
Built on the assumption it ends up in the water
Every task this aircraft flies is over open water, from a boat. The electronics sit in waterproof enclosures, and DroneRetriever flotation devices inflate on contact with the water at 6.4 kg of lift each, enough to hold the airframe on the surface until it can be recovered.