PolyUAS designs, builds, and flies autonomous aircraft for the CSU California Unmanned Aerial System Competition (C-UASC): autonomous flight and navigation, vision-based target identification and localization, and precision package delivery. This is the full program and the plan for the 2026 cycle, from airframe to onboard AI.
The CSU California Unmanned Aerial System Competition tasks student teams with designing, integrating, and demonstrating a UAS that flies autonomously and executes a set mission. Everything the program builds serves these three capabilities.
Waypoint autonomy, stable flight in wind and disturbance, and reliable state estimation. Owned by the flight controller and the autopilot tuning, not a human stick input.
Onboard computer vision detects, classifies, and geo-locates targets from the gimbal camera, then hands coordinates to the flight stack. Real-time detection is the constraint.
An autonomous payload mechanism lowers and releases a package accurately at a target, energy-efficiently, without destabilizing the aircraft.
Faculty advisor: Dr. Xi Wu. Vehicles may be multi-copter, fixed-wing, or VTOL. PolyUAS fields multiple build teams (Osiris, Horus, and others) plus a Fall 2026 swarm initiative.
PolyUAS is not one drone. It is several build teams iterating airframes against the same competition, unified by a common avionics and autonomy stack (SIYI N7 autopilot, SIYI HM30 link, Jetson compute, ArduPilot + MAVLink). The 2026 cycle pushes on three fronts at once.
The 7 kg quad platform (Osiris-class) that placed the team in C-UASC. The 2026 baseline, being refined, not replaced.
Five to six aircraft flying as one coordinated swarm (Pixhawk 6C Mini per node). The software team is standing up the coordination nodes; new airframes are being spec'd around it.
Evaluating fixed-wing and VTOL platforms for longer range and endurance than a pure multirotor can reach. Powertrain trade studies underway.
The proven platform the 2026 work builds on. A modular multicopter with a vibration-isolated avionics bay, quick-detach arms, a custom energy-dense battery, and a full onboard autonomy stack. Specs from the team's C-UASC design review.
| Airframe | ~12 kg AUW heavy-lift quad · modular removable arms, protected avionics bay, packs into an IP67 case |
| Structure | Aluminum central plates + CF arms · blind-mate JX4 arm connectors (CAN + PWM), 5° motor dihedral |
| Propulsion | SIYI E6 integrated propulsion · FOC ESC, PWM/CAN, ESC telemetry (RPM + fault), up to 6 kg/rotor |
| Power | 12S · two custom 6S4P 21700 packs · ~44 V, 18 Ah usable, ~27 A hover, ~40 min |
| Flight ctrl | SIYI N7 (ArduPilot) · dual IMU + thermostatic control, RTL + geofence + lost-link failsafes |
| Compute | Jetson Orin Nano · YOLO-nano + TensorRT INT8, >30 FPS; Rust/Zenoh stack |
| Camera | SIYI A8 mini gimbal · forward, quick-disconnect mount |
| Link / GPS | SIYI HM30 (5.8 GHz HD) · RTK GPS · video + MAVLink + control, ground control station |
| Payload | Passive spool + viscous damper + servo trap door · ~5 kg, delivery + drop, no active winch |
Every workstream the program is pushing on, with an honest read on each: what is proven and being refined, what is a genuine build, and where ambition needs a reality check. Green tags mark work owned by the EE side.
The modular platform works. 2026 is a frame redesign around new interference-fit parts, plus continued refinement of the quick-detach arms, compliant landing gear, and the winch/hook/drop-box payload.
The team builds its own energy-dense Li-ion packs (24 V, 22.5 Ah). Now they want to manage them: a custom BMS PCB with per-cell monitoring, protection, live telemetry, and smart charging.
The layer PolyUAS had no dedicated owner for. Moving from adapter-stacks and messy wiring to purpose-built boards the team explicitly wants.
Upgrade the onboard brain from Jetson Nano to Orin Nano Super and keep the YOLOv8 detection pipeline running in real time, plus the swarm coordination nodes.
A purpose-built portable GCS: an embedded computer talking MAVLink to the aircraft over a radio, with a screen that maps and locates the drone in the field.
An ambition on the wishlist: build the team's own flight controller.
The electrical side PolyUAS is building from the ground up (Amogh Somisetty). The team already builds its own batteries and wants its own board-level electronics to match: a battery management system with live telemetry and smart charging, and custom PCBs that replace the messy wiring harness with clean, integrated power distribution. Plus a thermal-reliability layer for the onboard AI that the software team can't build.
The Orin throttles under sustained vision inference in a hot canopy: clock drops, detection frame-rate drops, targets get missed. On a drone the rule is never sacrifice performance to stay cool, so the job is to keep it from throttling at all, with cooling and power headroom, not by reducing the AI.
The team builds its own energy-dense packs and wants its own BMS to match: per-cell monitoring, balancing, protection, live telemetry, and smart charging, all on one custom PCB. Today the pack flies unmanaged; this closes that gap.
Flight rule: it warns and reports so the aircraft lands on its own terms. It never cuts power mid-flight for a recoverable condition, because losing the drone is worse than stressing the pack.
First board is designed: a passive Arm & CAN backplane (power-dist-v1) that consolidates the DroneCAN bus and the four arm interfaces onto one part. Schematic ERC-clean and verified against the SIYI N7 pinout. See it in 3D ↘ Passive interconnect first (near-zero risk), then stepdowns, conditioning, and accurate voltage/current sensing.
Control + telemetry around proven RF silicon (SX1280 / SX126x). The SIYI HM30 carries HD video and control today; this would own a redundant control/telemetry link. Shielded from power/motor noise.
Isolate avionics rails from propulsion so motor noise never browns out the compute. Dedicated BECs + bulk caps, the number-one companion-computer failure fix.
The first custom board: a passive backplane that consolidates the aircraft's DroneCAN bus and the four arm interfaces onto one part. Drag to rotate, scroll to zoom, look from any angle. This is a preliminary model (placeholder outline, pending the avionics-tray CAD); the wiring it captures is verified against the team's design docs.
Ingests 48 V from the PDB, the SIYI N7 CAN bus, and N7 PWM 1-4; lands them on four clean JX4 arm connectors plus a Remote-ID CAN drop, with 120 Ω bus termination. Four independent 48 V pass-throughs mean no single trace carries the full motor current.
Preliminary placement on a 120 × 90 mm placeholder outline. Verified against the SIYI N7 pinout and the Osiris wiring diagram. XT30 bodies not shown (no stock 3D model).
The single most important electrical decision on the aircraft. Motor switching dumps noise on any shared rail; the number-one way a companion computer reboots mid-flight is drinking from the same supply as the ESCs.
The aircraft flies today on a proven stack. Custom hardware layers on without ever putting a competition season hostage to a board respin. Boards clear a review gate before they cost money or fly.
Proven quad on commercial avionics. Frame + battery redesign underway.
Software-only Orin characterization + detector. No board needed.
Arm & CAN backplane (schematic done, ERC-clean), then the smart battery board.
Custom control link + the portable ground station.
Multi-aircraft coordination integrated with the stack.
Integration, flight test, competition.