A team of engineers from the University of Bath have been crowned world champions in a contest which saw them design, build and fly their own drone.
Members of Team Bath Drones | Photo © University of Bath
Team Bath Drones won the 2025 UAS Challenge, which brought together 32 teams from universities around the world for a final fly-off event at BMFA Buckminster in Lincolnshire.
The group narrowly beat the reigning champions Beihang University (China), with Politecnico di Milano (Italy) awarded third place.
Team lead Ashviny Ramanathan has just completed a Master’s in Aerospace Engineering at Bath’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.
She said: “To win this worldwide competition among really strong competition is just amazing.
“The team have worked incredibly hard this year to make our drone even better in terms of how it flies and how it’s made, so to take the overall win is a great way to end our season.
“It was a great experience that we plan to replicate next year.”
Over 100 students, studying Aerospace, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Management and Computer Science are members of Team Bath Drones.
At the event, the team were charged with setting up their drone to operate autonomously, performing a series of tasks such as navigating waypoints, delivering a humanitarian aid package and returning to base via a defined route automatically, while also demonstrating its efficiency, manoeuvrability and sustainability.
Bath were the first in the competition to fly a fully autonomous mission, performing a take-off, successful waypoint navigation, payload drop and landing.
As well as the overall win, they also took home the environmental award for their all-new use of flax fibre composites in the drone’s fuselage, as well as the scrutineering award their systems, pre-flight processes, and overall professionalism throughout the competition.
They were also runners up in the innovation, airworthiness and safety categories.
Dr Samuel Bull, a lecturer in Mechanical Engineering and the team’s academic supervisor, said: “What an achievement. This is a just reward for the team’s incredible hard work over the past nine months.
“As well as making a drone that flies beautifully, they also took on the additional challenge of reducing the impact of its manufacture as well by using plant-based composites, which they learned to work with and manufacture themselves.”
Professor Tim Ibell, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering & Design, added: “The entire Faculty, and indeed the University, is so proud of Team Bath Drones and this excellent win – they’ve done themselves and the rest of us proud.
“Team Bath Drones is one of the many student teams in Engineering and Design that Bath students can take part in, and we continue to see the wonderful value and richness that they add to our students’ overall education experience.”
Universities from Italy, the Netherlands, Estonia, Ireland, China and Turkey took part in the final competition.
Having started in 2014 and now in its 11th year, the UAS Challenge is an annual engineering design competition, run by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, where undergraduate and postgraduate students at universities around the world design, build and fly a completely autonomous Unmanned Aerial System with a maximum weight of 10kg.
Participants can apply their academic studies by working on an engineering project as close to the real world as possible, gaining hands-on experience of engineering design, project management and teamwork, enhancing their degree knowledge and making them more capable engineers when they reach industry.
