Postgraduate students from Xi'an Jiaotong University, also known as Xi'an Jiaoda, recently finished in fourth place in a worldwide competition on the development of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).

Team Autero from the United States won the championship.

The 2016 DJI Developer Challenge — Fly to the Future, co-sponsored by UNDP, DJI Technology Co and Ford Motor Co, had a “Post-Disaster Research and Rescue” theme, with contestants required to design an application program to enable a DJI UAV to take off from a moving Ford F150 pickup truck and fly into a disaster area to search for survivors, passing real-time information to a SYNC 3 vehicle communication system. Finally, the DJI UAV was required to return and land safely on the moving Ford vehicle.

The competition received a total of 130 applicants from all around the world, with 25 teams selected to proceed to the second round of the competition. After nearly four months of development and two more screening rounds, 10 standout teams were invited to the final round, which was held at the Griffiss International Airport in New York state in August.

Team MachInsight from Xi'an Jiaoda was selected as one of the 10 finalists. Based in Xi'an, capital of Northwest China's Shaanxi province, Xi'an Jiaoda gave great support to its team, which completed the tasks set by the competition organizers and finished in fourth place.

DJI Technology, based in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong province, is a global leader in developing and manufacturing innovative drone technology for commercial and recreational use.