Project Overview
I am the team lead of V-TECH, the uncrewed aerial systems team of Falx Systems, Inc. Nine of us are taking a fully autonomous quadcopter to RoboNation SUAS 2026. We built all four systems in house: a carbon fiber airframe laid up by our own manufacturing crew, the avionics stack, the autonomy that flies the mission, and our own web ground control station instead of stock software. Competition: September 14 to 17, 2026 · Skyway Range, Tulsa, Oklahoma
My Role
Team Lead and Mechatronics. My job is keeping the airframe, avionics, autonomy and ground station converging on one aircraft that can fly its whole mission without a pilot, and keeping a team of nine moving in the same direction while it happens.
Ground Control Station
Rather than fly stock software, we wrote our own web ground station: flight instruments, a live map, mission planning with a survey grid calculator, parameter editing, and the judge display the competition requires. It runs in any browser against the aircraft link.
Team
Follow the campaign at vuav.net.
Technologies Used
Key Features
- Fully autonomous quadcopter, designed and built in house
- Airframe, avionics, autonomy and ground station all developed by the team
- Browser based ground control station with live map and mission planning
- Object detection and survey mapping from the aircraft
- Nine person team across mechatronics, avionics, software, AI, manufacturing and safety
Flight Test
Gallery
