Drones, Unmanned Vehicles Compete: 2025 Youth Intelligent Unmanned Systems Event Kicks Off in Shanghai

Drones zipped through the air in high-speed races and unmanned ground vehicles navigated obstacles at Oriental Land on Friday, as over 200 teams from across China converged for the 2025 National Youth Intelligent Unmanned Systems Application Competition.

The event features five major challenges: the fiber-optic remote-controlled drones challenge, ground anti-drone swarm challenge, air-ground unmanned cooperative combat, unmanned vehicle swarm race, and land-air joint logistics.

Hosted by the China Aerospace Society and the China Ordnance Society and organized by the Publicity Department of the CPC Shanghai Committee and the Shanghai Education Commission, the competition drew teams from both universities as well as vocational and technical schools.

A key highlight of the competition lies in its innovative design. Many challenges assign significant weight to the autonomous control functions of unmanned vehicles, prompting participants to advance their automation technologies. Practicality is also a core focus: for instance, the fiber-optic drones challenge specifically tests participants' on-site response to emergency scenarios – such as fiber-optic cable tangling and breakage – a design closely mirroring real-world situations where fiber-optic UAVs lose control due to cable malfunctions.

The competition fields are equally tailored to simulate real operational environments. Take the land-air joint logistics challenge, for example: participating teams must ensure their unmanned ground vehicles complete tasks with support from UAV reconnaissance and aerial transportation – under a strict "no turning back" rule. A single misstep could immediately eliminate their chance of winning.