SIG – HKU Unmanned Aerial System (HKU UAS)
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Supervisor: Dr. P. Lu (Department of Mechanical Engineering)
About us
Project descriptions
HKU UAS is a student interest group focusing on Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS). We aim to gather self-motivated drone lovers to learn and work on drone projects together. By joining us, not only can you gain a lot of hands-on experience, you can improve your mechanical, electrical and computer science skills.
In fact, we are also a drone hobby group, in which we can gather and fly drones together in our free time!
Team information
Team Leaders: Yuan Xushi Oscar, Lai Ho Yin Alex
Competition
Meituan(Keeta) Low-altitude Economic Intelligent Flight Challenge: With the support of the Innovation Wing, we participate in competitions to test our knowledge and skills. This also helps us learn from other teams and gain valuable experience. We will participate in the 2026 Meituan(Keeta) UAV-competition, focusing on practical challenges of drone operations in urban low-altitude environments, exploring the application of visual language navigation in air-ground collaboration. All members of the HKU UAS team, as long as you are passionate, are welcome to participate.
Workshop
We will be conducting a workshop aimed at providing students with a more comprehensive understanding of drone autonomous driving. We will teach students how to replicate the drone from the Shanghai Jiao Tong University paper “Learning Vision-Based Agile Flight via Differentiable Physics.” In the process, students will learn relevant concepts and algorithms, including ROS2, PX4, PyTorch, depth_estimate, and VIO.
Projects
The objective of this project is to help members learn about drone basics through interactive and attractive activities. It is more interest-based. The learning materials mostly revolve around FPV technology.
Additionally, members are encouraged to brainstorm and combine these fundamentals with their innovations. We wish to gather drone enthusiasts for future innovative projects.
What do we do for the Capstone Project?
For the Capstone Project, you and your team, along with the rest of the HKU UAS will be designing a UAS to join the AUVSI Student Unmanned Aerial Systems Competition in Maryland, USA.
Some of the tasks include:
- Design and manufacture of the Drone
- Design and manufacture an Unmanned Ground Vehicle for package delivery
- Design and implementation of an autonomous system to complete missions outlined by the competition
Details of the competition can be found here: https://www.auvsi-suas.org/
Recruitment
Who are we looking for?
We are looking for students passionate about drone technology.
We are also looking for students who are interested in
- Mechanical design and assembly;
- Electrical wiring and soldering;
- Programming; or
- Machine learning
You do not need to be very experienced or knowledgeable. As long as you are passionate, we can teach you and you can learn.
Project poster
Project video
Project images
Useful links
