Dear sponsors,

The VAMUdeS group participated at the first edition of the UVS Canada Student Flying Competition: (http://uvscanada.org/competition.html) held from last May 4th to May 7th 2007 in Goose Bay , Labrador . The VAMUdeS group won the first place at this event, presenting a fully autonomous miniature airplane. This was possible because of all the VAMUdeS sponsors and we want to use this occasion to thank you for making this great project possible.

The purpose of this competition was to do the locating phase of a search and rescue mission in remote Canadian wilderness. It was necessary to survey a 4 km² area of forest in the highly controlled area of the Goose Bay international airport. While the airplane flew autonomously, the VAMUdeS members at the ground control station had to detect via a direct video from an onboard camera various typical targets in search and rescue such as people lost in the forest, airplane crash, smoke signal and symbols left by survivors.

Three teams participated at this event: the Université de Sherbrooke, the University of Alberta and the University of Calgary . The VAMUdeS group had already won phase one of this competition by presenting a design report of the aircraft.

The VAMUdeS group presented a 1 meter wingspan with a mass of 1,3 kg . This twin electric motors aircraft is a fully autonomous UAV that uses lithium polymer batteries to power it systems. With an autonomy of 45 minutes at a cruising speed of 80 kph, it was sufficient to cover the entire search area. It was also possible to use the maximum speed of 135 kph if necessary.

The first prize came with a trophy and a 5000$ award. You will find attach to this e-mail a team picture taken at the award ceremony. With this other success, VAMUdeS is now preparing for it next competition that will be held at Toulouse ( France ) in September.