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IARC Mission 10

Official Rules

Venue is the UAS & Counter-UAS Center of Excellence Test Range
(about 20 minutes West of downtown Huntsville, Alabama, USA)
August 27 - August 28 (Rain Day August 29), 2025

Mission 10 details have been released

ascendMission 9 Winner

The Ascend team from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) demonstrated all of the required behaviors called out in the MISSION 9 requirements and has been declared the winner.
More details can be found here

technology

Cutting-Edge Technology

multidisciplinary

Multidisciplinary Teams

real-world

Real-World Applicability

What is the IARC

The premier aerial robotics challenge since 1991

The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International Foundation's International Aerial Robotics Competition is the longest running collegiate aerial robotics challenge in the world, having celebrated its quarter century anniversary in 2016. The primary purpose of the IARC is to move the state-of-the-art in aerial robotics forward through the creation of significant and useful mission challenges that are considered 'impossible' at the time that they are proposed.

With a long history of pushing the cutting-edge in aerial robotic behavior, the International Aerial Robotics Competition continues to challenge the best engineering students from around the world to develop the next generation of aerial robots. The IARC is not a "spectator sport," but rather a "technology sport." Numerous teams have demonstrated systems that have been of interest to industry and government, leading to sponsorship and contract opportunities.

Moreover, competitors have leveraged their competition contacts and experience to get jobs in the UAS industry or in government. The competition has always encouraged a collaborative atmosphere where teams compete against the mission and not against one another. See the video below for more information about the recently completed mission of the competition: Mission 9.

What was

Mission 9?

The recent MISSION 9 challenged teams to demonstrate new behaviors, some of which were extensions of past missions and some that have never before been attempted in any past IARC mission. These included:

  • Precision manipulation of large objects (NEW)
  • Fast outdoor operations over long distance (extension of MISSION 4)
  • Interaction with moving frames of reference (extension of MISSION 7)
  • Aerial robotic repair of mobile platforms (NEW)
  • Optical recognition (extension of MISSIONS 5, 6, 8)
  • Using ONLY onboard computing (NEW)

IARC Students

Impacting student lives and the pace of technology

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Our IARC Mission 9

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