University of Washington · Autonomous Systems
Washington Aerial Robotics
We build drones that fly themselves. A student team engineering fully autonomous UAVs for the International Aerial Robotics Competition.
The Mission
Design it. Build it. Let it fly on its own.
Washington Aerial Robotics is a team of students and faculty at the University of Washington, Seattle, working together to build autonomous drones. Our purpose is to give the UW engineering community opportunities to learn skills in designing, building, and testing autonomous UAVs — and to compete in the International Aerial Robotics Competition. Six subteams make it happen.
Mechanical
The airframe itself: testbed and structures design, propulsion integration, and hardware system integration.
Avionics
The electronics stack: flight-controller, power-supply, and ESC PCB design, plus electrical systems integration.
Firmware
Onboard and ground software: peripherals, flight-control integration, the ground station, comms, and parameter tuning.
Autonomy
How the aircraft decides where to go: flight and user trajectory planning, multi-agent coordination, and flight-computer software.
Perception
How the aircraft sees: camera integration, visual detection, SLAM, and mapping.
Business
The logistics that keep the RSO running: onboarding, outreach, grants and sponsorships, budgeting, and membership policy.
All majors. All welcome.
Club Sponsors
The partners behind our aircraft — hardware, CAD, simulation, and systems.
