Design, Build, and Fly Autonomous Lighter-Than-Air Vehicles as a Project-Based Class

Abstract

The ENGR-E 399/599 Autonomous Sports course at Indiana University was recently redeveloped to focus holistically on integrated vehicle design and development in a capstone-like, project-based course format. As part of the class, advanced undergraduate (3rd and 4th year) and graduate students (MS and PhD) developed autonomous lighter-than-air vehicle (LTA) vehicles (i.e., autonomous blimps) to compete in the "Defend the Republic" (DTR) competition. In the competition, students aim to use their blimps to autonomously capture helium balloons and score them into the opponent’s goals—effectively Robotic Quidditch. The challenge involves designing and controlling robot swarms that operate in challenging environments with limited sensing, actuation, and computation capabilities. Students work in teams, performing vehicle design, fabrication, prototyping, embedded development, systems engineering, feedback control, motion planning, and computer vision. The course provides students the opportunity to learn by applying their knowledge to real-world challenges, i.e., experiential learning, to “learn-by-doing”, which is becoming universally recognized as crucial by educational institutions. This paper provides details on the course offering including a description of the student competition, course structure, student performance at DTR, and lessons learned.