Features Artificial intelligence

Flight of the Valkyrie

Waterloo engineering students compete for glory with an AI-enhanced urban firefighting drone.

By

Kate Jaimet & Ema Suvajac

March 16, 2026

Posted in

Feature articles
0 Comments

Engineering students in the Waterloo Aerial Robotics Group (WARG) are gearing up to defend their title as champions of the National Student Unmanned Aircraft Competition, hosted annually by the Aerial Evolution Association of Canada. 

The challenge? To build an AI-enhanced drone for urban firefighting and fly it in competition against other student-built drones. In addition to carrying water and flying outdoors, the drone must also be able to navigate through an indoor concrete structure. This is where the AI component comes in: to find its way through the indoor space without relying on GPS data, and to hold its position while hovering inside that space, the drone must be able to create a map of the indoors in real time.  

WARG’s team of approximately 30 students will accomplish this by equipping the drone with a stereo camera (ie: a camera with two lenses) that allows it to compute 3D space by comparing the images from the two lenses. “At the highest level, we are looking at fusing stereo camera data with the flight controller data and using it to hold position in absence of a GPS,” explains WARG technical director Manasva Katyal. 

The competition takes place in Ottawa May 22 to 24.

Camilo Artigas (with Semih Eski) begin work on cutting out a pattern to build the body of the drone. The six-armed drone, named Project Valkyrie, will be made out of ultra-light, thin-ply carbon fiber material. (Photo courtesy: WARG Operations Subteam)
Daniel Puratich, a senior member of the WARG electrical team, welds a battery pack to power Project Valkyrie. (Photo courtesy: WARG Operations Subteam)
An atmosphere of nervous excitement reigns as WARG team members assemble at the Waterloo Regional Emergency Services Training Centre on Nov. 14, 2025, for the maiden flight of Project Valkyrie. (Photo: Ema Suvajac)
WARG team members watch and film the maiden flight test. “When we fly a drone, things can go wrong, so it’s good to have it filmed so we can look back and identify any issues by looking at the video. It’s also really exciting,” says team co-lead Georgia Westerlund. (Photo: Ema Suvajac)
Pilot Nathan Green (left) uses the controller to fly the drone, while ground station operator Ronak Patel monitors flight data on the screen. (Photo: Ema Suvajac)
Daniel Puratich (left), Nathan Green and Georgia Westerlund check that the bolts are tight on the motor attachments on the arms of the drone. (Photo: Ema Suvajac)
Daniel Puratich (left) and Rohaan Vasa do the ‘drone dance,’ rotating the drone on all its different axes to calibrate the compass before flight. (Photo: Ema Suvajac)
Project Valkyrie does its hover test. “We’re testing that it can take off, hover in place for a short period of time, and land. The drone did this successfully,” says Georgia Westerlund. (Photo: Ema Suvajac)
Project Valkyrie is strapped into the back of a flatbed truck for transport. This photo shows the centre part of the airframe where the key electronics sit. Some parts, such as the battery pack, will be strapped on to the airframe after transport. (Photo: Ema Suvajac)
Members of the team gather in the WARG bay workspace at Waterloo. (Photo: Ema Suvajac)
Georgia Westerlund leads the debrief in a meeting room after the test flight. “We talk about everything that happened, what went well, what we could improve,” she says. After Project Valkyrie’s successful maiden flight, there is still work to be done. Next, the team must add an AI-enabled system to allow the drone to map its position in 3D space in an indoor environment, where GPS data is not available. (Photo: Ema Suvajac)
A camera with two lenses, called a stereo camera, is mounted on the drone to enable it to calculate its position in 3D space in a GPS-denied environment. (Photos courtesy: WARG Operations Subteam)
A small motor affixed to the end of each arm of the drone will turn a propellor to achieve flight. (Photos courtesy: WARG Operations Subteam)
This GPS is used outdoors to calculate the drone’s position in terms of longitude, latitude and altitude. (Photos courtesy: WARG Operations Subteam)
The squiggly blue line on the laptop screen shows the drone constructing a map of the space around it in real time during flight. (Photo courtesy: WARG Operations Subteam)

Kate Jaimet & Ema Suvajac

Kate Jaimet is the deputy editor of University Affairs. Ema Suvajac is a professional photographer based in Ontario's Kitchener-Waterloo/Guelph region.

Tags

More from Features

More from Artificial intelligence

More from Feature articles

The weekly read
for Canadian higher ed professionals
Join thousands of subscribers who receive career advice, news, opinion columns and feature stories from University Affairs.