They took the title by narrowly beating Beihang University (China), the reigning champions. The Politecnico di Milano (Italy) flew into third place.
Drone world champions
Team Bath Drones won the 2025 UAS Challenge, to be precise. Thirty-two teams from universities around the world came to BMFA Buckminster in Lincolnshire for the final fly-off event.
The joy was sweeter for going one better than last year’s second-place performance…
Team Bath Drones are pictured above with their cup. All together, more than 100 students are members of the Bath grouping.
What did the compo involve?
The team were setting up their drone to operate autonomously. They were performing a series of tasks such as navigating waypoints, delivering a humanitarian aid package and returning to base via a specific route. All the while demonstrating its efficiency, manoeuvrability and sustainability.
Winners
Apparently, Bath were the first in the competition to fly a fully autonomous mission, performing a take-off, successful waypoint navigation, payload drop and landing.
Note that as well as the overall win, they also took home the environmental award for their drone. This was for the all-new use of flax fibre composites in the drone’s fuselage.
They were also runners up in the innovation, airworthiness and safety categories.
Run by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the annual engineering design competition dates from 2014.
Full scoring for all the individual events will be available on the UAS Challenge website.
How it flies
The team leader is Ashviny Ramanathan, who has completed a Master’s in Aerospace Engineering in Bath’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.
“To win this worldwide competition among really strong competition is a just amazing,” said Ashviny. “The team have worked incredibly hard this year to make our drone even better in terms of how it flies and how it’s made, so to take the overall win is a great way to end our season.”
“It was a great experience that we plan to replicate next year,” she added.
Plant-based composites
Staff supervisors were suitably proud.
“What an achievement. This is a just reward for the team’s incredible hard work over the past nine months,” said Dr Samuel Bull, a lecturer in Mechanical Engineering and the team’s academic supervisor.
“As well as making a drone that flies beautifully, they also took on the additional challenge of reducing the impact of its manufacture as well by using plant-based composites, which they learned to work with and manufacture themselves.”
Congratulations to Team Bath Drones!
You can read our Technology Editor’s write-up of the competition here.
Images: University of Bath
See also: Westcott Drone Test and Development Centre gets development update