Klagenfurt Drone Team Wins International Competition in the USA

Austrian Drone Team Wins International Competition in the USA

Autonomous drones from Klagenfurt researchers support disaster relief efforts.

A research team from the University of Klagenfurt has won an international drone competition in Huntsville, USA. Their autonomous drones, developed under the leadership of Professor Stephan Weiss, can navigate without GPS, communicate with each other, and carry out complex tasks that may one day help save lives in disaster scenarios.

Whether after a storm, earthquake, or hurricane, first responders often face the challenge of quickly assessing the situation: How many people are injured? How can rescuers reach them safely? The Klagenfurt drones are designed to provide exactly these answers – fast and effectively.

Autonomous and precise
The student team – consisting of PhD candidate Luca Di Pierno and students Gilbert Tanner, Georg Steinthaler, Tim Schumann, Ben Wesse, and Jonas Spieler – built drones that create maps of disaster areas, identify people in need, deliver first-aid kits, and relay crucial information such as the number of injured and safe access routes to rescue teams. The drones can detect even the smallest objects down to one centimeter and navigate safely around obstacles.

NASA expertise as foundation
Team member Luca Di Pierno, who completed his Master’s thesis at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Los Angeles, contributed algorithms originally developed to improve the Mars Helicopter Ingenuity. These advancements became the foundation for the drones used in Huntsville.

The Klagenfurt drones proved to be the only ones capable of completing all tasks flawlessly, outperforming teams from the University of London (UK), the University of Alabama in Huntsville (USA), and Delft University of Technology (Netherlands).

Wide-ranging applications
Beyond disaster relief, the team’s mapping technology has already been applied to projects such as surveying a research tunnel at the Montanuniversität Leoben and a bridge in Carinthia’s Rosental valley. Potential future applications include infrastructure inspection, precision agriculture, and automated fruit counting for food producers.

Looking ahead
The team is now preparing for the third round of the competition, which will take place in March 2026 at TU Delft, Netherlands. The project continues to be supported by technical experts Fred Arneitz (Control of Networked Systems) and Amon Ferreira-Weratschnig (Sensors, Actuators & Modular Robotics), as well as by administrator Melissa Aichholzer (Control of Networked Systems).

This achievement demonstrates how innovation from Austria can make a global impact – and how technology developed in Klagenfurt might one day save lives.

The team of Invest in Klagenfurt warmly congratulates the researchers and keeps its fingers crossed for the upcoming competition rounds!

For more information see: Team der Universität Klagenfurt gewinnt Drohnen-Wettbewerb in Huntsville (USA) - Kärnten Digital