The AIRLab team from the Politecnico di Milano has achieved second place at the Leonardo Drone Contest 2025, the annual competition promoted by Leonardo to foster research and development of innovative technologies in the field of multi-agent cooperation.
The contest, which brings together leading Italian universities, focuses on developing heterogeneous autonomous systems capable of collaborating to accomplish complex missions. The goal of this edition was to integrate a ground agent with a drone able to operate in unknown environments without relying on the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS).
To achieve this, participants implemented artificial intelligence algorithms for navigation, localization, and collaboration among systems. The solutions were developed using ROS2 and Docker architectures and tested in real-world scenarios featuring a dedicated human–machine interface designed to facilitate control by human operators.
The Politecnico di Milano team competed against six other Italian universities and distinguished itself for the technical robustness and innovative character of its approach. The team includes Simone Mentasti, Matteo Molinari, Daniele Migliore, and several students from the Robotics course, under the supervision of Prof. Matteo Matteucci and Prof. Francesco Amigoni, with support from the Fly-ART laboratory, led by Prof. Marco Lovera from the Department of Aerospace Science and Technology.