Mumbai college comes 2nd in global aero-design contest

Mumbai, April 16: A Mumbai college team has bagged second position globally and first in Asia out of 75 teams worldwide in the Advanced Class design category of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) aircraft, a senior official said here on Tuesday.

Describing it as a milestone achievement, the collge official said the team of students from Anjuman-I-Islam's M.H. Saboo Siddik College of Engineering bagged the second prize globally and the first in Asia.

It has also secured the third prize in the Micro Class design category of UAV in the annual international competition organised by Society of Automative Engineers International (SAE), Lockheed Martin US, and Dassault Systems, France.

"These designs shall now form part of the advanced research and development to be conducted by Lockheed Martin for future practical applications and international study papers on the same," said Zahir I. Kazi, president, Anjuman-I-Islam which runs the M.H. Saboo Siddik group of top-notch educational institutions in Mumbai.

The competition -- in its 29th edition -- held last month at Lakeland, Florida, US, saw the participation of the 17-member "Team Aerosouls", which included two females, from the college, besides elite teams from IITs Bombay, Vellore and Kanpur.

The college's principal, Mohiuddin Ahmed said the institution's "Team Aerosouls" has been the most aggressive competitor on the global arena for the prestigious SAE competition for three years.

"It was for the first time since the SAE competition's inception that an Indian team, Team Aerosouls, won such a recognition in 2012-213, followed by 2013-2014, and the latest honours this year," Ahmed told IANS.

"We have proved that our students, mostly Muslims, have that kind of world-class talent and can put in stringent efforts which earned them global recognition," Kazi told IANS. "We want to go one step ahead and contribute to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Make In India' initiative by contributing such designs for our country," he added.

Ahmed said that last year, Team Aerosouls stood first in the UAV Micro Class design at the world level and first in Asia in UAV Advanced Class design with a global rank of sixth.

The preceding year -- 2012-2013 -- Team Aerosouls stood first in Asia and 8th globally in the UAV Micro Class design, and became the first ever Indian participating team to win any honour in the SAE competition.

The SAE competition comprises UAV Regular, Micro and Advance Class as three sections in its Aero-Design Series, and M.H. Saboo Siddik College is a regular participant in the UAV Advanced Class and Micro Class sections, said team mentor M. Saqlain Siddiqui.

IANS