Designed and developed in collaboration with seven Italian universities, the Leonardo Drone Contest was created to promote the development of artificial intelligence applied to unmanned systems and aims to encourage the creation of an innovation ecosystem that involves and brings together the capabilities of large companies, universities, SMEs and italian spin-offs and start-ups.
The competition aims to develop advanced technological solutions in the field of autonomous mobility, which can be applied to complex and real scenarios, such as monitoring areas affected by natural disasters or surveillance of high-risk and difficult-to-access areas.
The Drone Contest was launched in 2020, and involved, in the first three editions, six Italian universities: Politecnico of Turin, Politecnico of Milan, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna of Pisa, University of Naples Federico II, Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna. The Politecnico of Bari has joined them since the fourth edition.
The fifth edition of the Leonardo Drone Contest took place on 9 and 10 October 2024 at Dronitaly, an event hosted by BolognaFiere Water&Energy (BFWE). First place was won by the University of Rome Tor Vergata; second place by the Polytechnic University of Milan and third place by the Polytechnic University of Turin.
The aim of the competition was cooperation between drones in flight and robots on the ground, in order to recognise objectives, overcome obstacles and exchange essential information for the mission. The participating teams had twenty minutes each to face three heats, challenging each other in a simulated urban environment, without GNSS satellite signal, through their robotic systems that were guided by artificial intelligence and carried out the assigned missions in complete autonomy.
