Tainan City’s Anding Flying Field was given the honor of hosting this year’s Taiwan Innovative Unmanned Aircraft Design, which is an annual event that was held on the weekend of March 19-20 (2016). First organized in 1999, this competition was founded by the Aeronautical and Astronautical Society of the Republic of China (AASRC), and it invites university students from all over Taiwan to showcase their drone designs. The purpose of this event is to provide a solid foundation for aviation education, promote design techniques and technology for unmanned aircraft, cultivate aircraft system integration talent, and bring about collaboration between industry and academia. National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) was awarded the competition’s hosting rights in 2007, and this year marks the 10th year that the university has held the event. In these 10 years the university has worked very hard, contributing so much that a lot of the progress and popularity of Taiwan’s unmanned aircraft industry can be linked to this competition. Over 90 student teams from 20+ universities both in Taiwan and abroad registered for this celebrated competition, which offered six divisions this year: 1) Airplane Design, 2) Flight Performance, 3) Autopilot System, 4) Creative Planes, 5) Flapping Wings Flight, and 6) Multi-Rotor Aircrafts. The rules and regulations have become even stricter than in the past; every team is now required to make a video of their typical practice sessions and send it to the competition committee. This prerequisite ensures that participating teams have aircrafts capable of flying, as only those who satisfy the requirements are allowed to join this competition that gets more intense every year.
Last year (2015) was the first time the competition was moved back to Tainan, and the event has received a lot of support from local residents. This year’s competition combined unmanned aircraft design and aviation education, with a focus on popular science. A special thank you was expressed to the following organizations in the Greater Tainan Area for their generous support in hosting this event: Tainan City Government, its Bureau of Education and Tourism Bureau, and Anding District Office. Also being given a warm thank you was Future Education Research and Develop Center, which designed a series of exciting activities for children that focus on teaching the popular science side of aviation. Games at the event included plane jigsaw puzzles, airplane pair-matching, emergency response, and a miniature model where airplanes pass through tunnels. This popular science education effort helped increase K-12 students’ general knowledge about aviation.
In addition to the above academic activities, Mr. Patrick Huang represented the business world at the event. In July of last year, Huang, who is part of the aviation company The Airplane Factory, accomplished the incredible feat of flying around the world in just one week. Huang flew the Sling 2, which is a single engine light sport aircraft, and he displayed his record-breaking plane at the competition. Tainan City Mayor Lai Qing-de was given the honor of awarding Huang with a trophy that both celebrates his bravery in taking on such a treacherous task and recognizes his achievement as being one of the ethnic Chinese aviation community’s many historic accomplishments.
Professor Lai Wei-Hsiang is the Committee Chairperson of the Taiwan Innovative Unmanned Aircraft Design Competition. Lai said, “Aerospace engineering is an important scientific field that’s linked to our future. And, so this year’s motto of ‘flying towards the future’ is a call to once again get young people excited about aviation, so that they’re interested and invested in this field. In the past, Air Asia Company Limited was the most important aviation center in Tainan. Another important part of our history is Wong Tsu, the first chief engineer of the Boeing Company, which has a 100+-year history. Professor Wong taught at NCKU’s Department of Mechanical Engineering for 10 years. Also noteworthy is that NCKU is this country’s only national university with an aviation department. NCKU’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics enjoys a 40-year history that dates back to when the university founded the department while it was assisting the Chinese Academy of Sciences with researching and developing the jet fighter AIDC F-CK-1 Ching-kuo (commonly known as the Indigenous Defense Fighter (IDF)). The university also founded the Aerospace Experimental Field, which is located near Tainan High Speed Rail Station. In the past, the university’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics was recognized as one of Taiwan’s Top 10 Science and Engineering Organizations People Want to Join. Today, National Cheng Kung University as well as its Aerospace Science and Technology Research Center are mainstays of the Greater Tainan Area. As we look toward the future we hope that at a later period in time that the new government will once again serve as an important navigator for the aviation industry.
“UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) are like sparrows—they may be small but inside them are a host of different capabilities. They not only can serve as a major theme for our university aviation departments when students are learning about system integration, but, more importantly, in the future they’ll also be an important part of aviation technology development, as they’ll be used as target drones, for war, reconnaissance, surveillance, scouting disaster areas, assisting the coast guard, and preventing smuggling. They could even be used to help with environmental protection-related surveillance as well as aid monitoring efforts of wild birds that could be spreading bird viruses. Overall, they have a lot of potential value when it comes to being used in military affairs, government matters, and many different kinds of industries, which is why all advanced countries are investing heavily in drone R&D. UAV design of real world drones for this reason is a type of aviation engineering, and design is the best method for allowing university students to showcase their knowledge of theory, their ability to put theory into practice, and the spirit of teamwork. Drone design is a perfect activity for testing students’ knowledge concerning systems integration and deep (machine) learning as well. For the reasons I just stated, I truly believe that drone design can attract more and more student teams to join this competition in the future. For years we’ve taught students about the hands-on side of aviation, and many of us have learned a lot on visits to the USA’s Experimental Aircraft Association (EEA). So, I hope that every year in this country we’ll be able to have this special event that offers many things only found in the dreams of us aviation enthusiasts.”
Contact: Jin-Jiun Li, National Cheng Kung University; Phone: 06-2757575 ext. 50040