In response to national development trends and national defense considerations, two new groups—‘Drone Innovation’ and ‘Drone-Tech’—were added to this year’s Innovative Services Contest (28th InnoServe). The competition, which is organized by the Ministry of Digital Affairs, serves as an important index for a variety of development benchmarks in Taiwan. This year (2023), the Ministry of Digital Affairs arranged a series of special courses for contestants from the cross-domain group, and once again recruited Professor Hudson Hsu from National Pingtung University of Science and Technology (NPUST) to provide instruction. The training was conducted at the Asia UAV AI Innovation Application R&D Center in Chiayi, where Professor Hsu went over drone regulations, design principles, certification, practice, and other topics.
Professor Hsu commented that “most domestic courses on UAV design principles focus on fixed-wing aircraft. There are not many comprehensive teaching systems when it comes to design theory or practical application for rotorcraft. And so, in coordination with the Ministry of Education USR Project and National Science Councils popular science education initiative we have created a course to introduce US military training materials and rotorcraft design theory to the students.” A third-year female student of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at National Taiwan University said “the operations covered in each subject—such as pre/post-flight inspection, flying instruction, maintenance records, and after action review—coupled with the vivid design theory course, provided us with totally new conceptions, and made for a very impactful learning experience. Overall, the experience proved to be beneficial to the teachers and students who took part in the training.
