The ICUAS 2025 UAV Competition is currently in full swing in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA, as part of the International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS), taking place from May 14–17, 2025.
Now in its fourth edition, the competition brings together top university teams from around the world to test their aerial robotics solutions in a demanding, communication-constrained scenario. Teams are deploying swarms of Bitcraze Crazyflies in a mock indoor urban environment to autonomously locate targets, maintain continuous connectivity with a central base station, and manage battery usage through coordinated recharging.
This year, the competition attracted 26 teams from 15 countries. Following a proof-of-concept submission round, 15 teams advanced to the simulation phase.
The competition is organized by the LARICS laboratory at the University of Zagreb, which developed the simulation environment and scoring system. The LARICS team — Frano Petric, Marijana Peti, and Marko Kozlik — is currently on-site in Charlotte, supporting the execution of the live finals. Khawaja Ghulam Alamdar also made a key contribution during the simulation phase, helping to set up the virtual environment and prepare technical documentation.
While FER’s UAV Competition team focused on the simulation and judging process, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, led by Artur Wolek, was responsible for preparing the physical competition arena at the conference venue.
🏆 Finalist Teams Competing in Charlotte:
AIRo Lab – The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (China)
CSIE – Center for Scientific Innovation and Education (Armenia)
Aerial Robotics IITK – Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (India)
AGH AVADER – AGH University of Krakow (Poland)
KNU ARRF – Kyungpook National University (South Korea)
The competition is proudly supported by Platinum Sponsors:
Bitcraze – providing Crazyflie drones and the Loco Positioning System
NaturalPoint – enabling precise tracking with the OptiTrack motion capture system
Congratulations to all the finalists — and good luck to everyone competing this week in Charlotte!
📎 More info: ICUAS 2025 UAV Competition
📎 Conference site: ICUAS 2025
