PENN Air is competing in SAE Aero Design Regular, Advanced, and Micro CLasses and the international aerial robotics Competition(IARC)in the 2026-2027 season

WHO WE ARE

Founded in 2014 by Lukas Vacek, Penn Aerial Robotics (Penn AiR) is a student-led organization at the University of Pennsylvania for the development of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The club welcomes members from all majors and focuses on enthusiasm and interest when evaluating applicants. Penn AiR consists of Mechanical, Electrical, Software, and Operations sub teams, collaborating as one team to design, build, and optimize new aircrafts for competition annually. During the 2026-27 school year, we will be designing and constructing micro-class planes, a large high-lift aircraft, and an autonomous tail-sitter VTOL aircraft to compete in 3 separate events at SAE Aero Design 2027. We will also develop a full stack autonomy codebase for a quadcopter robot swarm to compete in IARC, involving computer vision, path planning, and controls.