Harvard UAV Team

The Airframe Team owns the end-to-end structural and aerodynamic design of the aircraft, including airframe layout, load paths, structural integrity, and mass distribution. They lead material selection, weight management, and assembly strategy with an emphasis on durability, repairability, and rapid iteration. They are responsible for integrating horizontal and vertical flight configurations into a cohesive airframe and ensuring the structure supports all propulsion, payload, and avionics systems under mission and safety constraints.

The Payload team spearheads the design, analysis, and integration of the mission payload pickup and delivery system, ensuring reliable operation across all mission phases. They own payload mounting geometry, actuation mechanisms, release logic, and structural interfaces with the airframe. Engineers ensure compliance with competition shatter requirements and drop-zone constraints while balancing precision, robustness, and system weight, working closely with airframe and controls teams to enable repeatable, mission-critical payload operations for simulated wildfire containment.

The Power & Controls Team leads the selection, design, and integration of all major electrical and flight-critical components, including motors, ESCs, batteries, regulators, and flight control hardware. They develop the aircraft wiring architecture, power distribution strategy, and electrical documentation. Engineers are responsible for battery compliance, system safety, and implementation of required safety protocols, including fail safes, arming and disarming logic, propulsion kill mechanisms, and RF kill functionality, ensuring safe operation across all test and flight scenarios.

The Autonomy & Ground Controls Team designs the configuration and implementation of autonomous flight and ground control systems, working closely with the Power & Controls Team to ensure reliable integration with flight hardware. They develop mission-specific waypoint logic, altitude and geofencing rules, mode switching behavior, and autonomous fail-safe responses. The team owns telemetry, command and control logic, and manual override behavior, enabling safe transitions between autonomous and piloted flight while maintaining situational awareness and mission reliability.