Raytheon Autonomous Vehicle Competition

The Raytheon Autonomous Vehicle Competition (AVC) is a university team challenge where students design, build, integrate, and test a “system of systems” made up of at least one UAV (drone) and one UGV (ground vehicle) to solve a real-world autonomy problem.

This season’s theme, “Operation Touchdown,” focuses on autonomous navigation, target identification, and collaborative autonomy: the UAV must autonomously launch and scout a field to find a destination ArUco marker and communicate that location directly to the UGV (no ground station), while the UGV drives toward the destination and avoids obstacles. During the run, the UAV must also autonomously land on the moving UGV and ride with it as the combined system reaches the destination.