A Complete University UAV Lab Package for Teaching, Training, and Research

Recently, the AMOVLAB delivery team arrived at Shandong Jiaotong University to deploy a complete intelligent UAV laboratory solution for higher education. The delivered equipment included 20 F230 indoor teaching UAVs, 10 P230 indoor training UAVs, SU17 LiDAR research UAVs, and other platforms.

The purpose of this “full package” delivery was clear: not only to move equipment into the laboratory, but to help the university connect the three things that matter most: classroom teaching, practical training, and research-algorithm implementation. The goal is to move from “the drone can fly” to “the platform can support research and produce results.”

01. On-Site Deployment

At the Shandong Jiaotong University site, the team completed equipment arrival, unpacking and inventory, workstation deployment, power-on debugging, ground-station connection, and flight verification step by step. The entire process ensured that the UAV platforms could be used out of the box.

At the outdoor flight site, engineers completed flight verification and demonstrated the UWB + five-UAV swarm formation system, including multi-UAV collaboration and formation control.

For teachers and students, the most direct change is that the laboratory is not simply “set up”; it is already running.

02. Teaching and Practical Training

In many university scenarios, the gap between teaching and practice is not the course content itself, but the lack of a stable platform that can be reproduced and iterated repeatedly.

F230 serves as the foundation for teaching. It is suitable for classroom introduction, basic flight training, and course projects, helping students build real understanding of flight control, power systems, parameter tuning, and task execution from the beginning.

P230 focuses more on indoor training. It is designed for positioning, obstacle avoidance, mission demonstration, and secondary development in indoor or GPS-denied environments, helping teachers and students move algorithms from paper derivation to real-platform verification.

P230 is a 250 mm experimental platform for research and developers. Based on the F230 platform, it adds onboard computing, depth cameras, the Prometheus autonomous UAV open-source project, and ground-station software, enabling indoor visual positioning, visual obstacle avoidance, and further secondary development.

03. Research and Algorithms

One of the most research-oriented platforms in the package is the SU17 research UAV equipped with MID360 LiDAR. It is designed for SLAM navigation, mapping, and obstacle avoidance.

The SU17 research version is an all-in-one UAV research platform integrating flight control, onboard computing, visual SLAM, cameras, video/data transmission, and Prometheus autonomous UAV software. It supports research directions such as control, object recognition and tracking, and path planning. With the optional MID360 3D LiDAR, it can implement 3D LiDAR SLAM such as FAST-LIO and combine it with path planning such as EGO-Swarm for 3D mapping and real-time obstacle avoidance.

04. Multi-UAV Collaboration

At the outdoor site, the AMOVLAB delivery team demonstrated a UWB five-UAV swarm formation system. A single system enabled multi-UAV collaboration and formation control, turning swarm-algorithm verification from a high-threshold integration task into a reproducible experimental workflow.

At the platform and solution level, AMOVLAB’s swarm-formation development platform is based on the open-source Prometheus project. It supports networked communication between UAVs running the Prometheus onboard system, provides a ROS-based interface, and supports multiple positioning methods including GPS, RTK, UWB, and MoCap. UWB positioning accuracy can reach approximately 5-30 cm depending on the environment, meeting the needs of most university swarm research and teaching demonstrations.

For a more complete delivery form, the swarm formation kit is usually provided as a full-stack package: UAVs, positioning modules, communication modules, flight controllers, onboard computing, and swarm-control software. Combined with open-source ecosystems such as ROS and PX4, the ground station provides efficient human-machine interaction and quick onboarding.

05. In-Depth Training

Delivery is only the beginning. Enablement is the core. After the platform lands, what determines whether a university team can truly use it, continue development, and produce results is how quickly teachers and students can master the system and establish their R&D path.

During this delivery, AMOVLAB did not stop at one-time training. Instead, we provided multiple rounds of phased technical training. Each round focused on a different level of use and combined theoretical explanation with on-site operation, helping the team move from understanding principles to independent operation, and from environment setup to algorithm development and optimization.

We believe one training session is never enough. Only repeated reinforcement and continuous enablement can help university teams truly understand and make good use of the experimental equipment. Delivery is not the end point; it is the beginning of long-term collaboration and capability building.

Contact AMOVLAB to obtain a complete UAV laboratory construction plan.