By Paul Tateoka
BYU mechanical engineering students beat out international competition with their lightweight plane design at the second annual international air vehicle competition.
Five BYU student engineers squared off with seven other schools from France, Germany and the United States to compete in Sandestin, Fla.
Each team was required to build an airplane less than half a meter in length with a weight under half a kilogram and each plane had to complete various tasks while being under a time restraint, said Brett Millar, a senior from Rigby, Idaho, majoring in mechanical engineering.
BYU senior, Ian Beaty from Mesa, Ariz., majoring in electrical engineering, designed and built the Micro Air Vehicle.
'The airplanes that we have are big, heavy and loud,' Beaty said. 'This competition needed a plane that was small, light and quiet.'
Each team was required to build a small airplane with capabilities to fly on its own, take surveillance pictures and carry a deployable payload, Millar said.
'One of the major goals that I had was to make an airplane that would protect all of the valuable equipment inside of it, but still be within the requirements of this competition,' Beaty said.
BYU won the competition by completing the course in the least amount of time, identifying three targets correctly and landing a paintball five feet away from the target. The closest competitor landed their paintball more than 10 meters from the target.
Teams were scored by their ability to take off and land within a specific region and how close the paintball landed to the target, said Nathan Knoebel from Montoursville, Penn., who is pursuing a master''s in mechanical engineering.
In addition to building the plane, students also designed the hardware that made it fly.
The autopilot is manned from a ground station and a handheld radio control is used as for back up, Knoebel said.
'We have a ground station where we upload commands for flight paths, bombing algorithms that factors wind and speed,' said Knoebel. 'The plane basically flies itself.'
The autopilot flies the plane from the moment it leaves the ground to the time it lands, said Knoebel.
Millar and Knoebel represented the BYU team at the event and were in charge of giving the commands to fly the plane.
Neil Johnson and Blake Barber are also members of the BYU team.