The Association for Uncrewed Vehicles Systems International (AUVSI) today named the winners for the sixth annual AUVSI XCELLENCE Awards. The awards recognize the accomplishments of companies, organizations and individuals across the uncrewed systems community. The winners were recognized during an awards ceremony at XPONENTIAL 2023 which is being held this week at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, CO. This year’s 50 anniversary event is co-hosted by Messe Düsseldorf North America. 

“This year, XPONENTIAL is all about designing a shared plan for the future of autonomy,” Keely Griffith, Vice President of Strategic Programs at AUVSI. “There's no better place to announce the 2023 XCELLENCE award finalists. Together, they are redefining what's possible with uncrewed and robotic technology.”

AUVSI’s XCELLENCE Awards honor innovators with a demonstrated commitment to advancing autonomy, leading and promoting safe adoption of uncrewed systems and developing programs that use these technologies to save lives and improve the human condition. 

These are the finalists in those categories:

XCELLENCE in Academic Research
First Place: University of Colorado Boulder, 20 Years of UAS Research XCELLENCE
Second Place: Virginia Tech's Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership, Robert Briggs
Third Place: Ocean Alliance, Tagging Whales with Drones

XCELLENCE in Innovation
First Place: Skydio, Skydio Dock, Automated Inspections of Sites with Autonomous, Remote Drone Operations
Second Place: Plus, PlusDrive, An Industry-defining Driver-in, Highly Automated Driving (HAD) Solution
Third Place: Sentera, Eliminating Stitching with the Sentera DGR System

XCELLENCE IN OPERATIONS - Enterprise Application

First Place: JobsOhio and the Ohio Department of Transportation, Propelling AAM in Ohio
Second Place: Advanced Navigation, Cloud Ground Control
Third Place: City of Pendleton, Pendleton UAS Range

XCELLENCE IN TECHNOLOGY 
Enabling Components & Peripherals
First Place: infiniDome, infiniDome’s GPSdome2
Second Place: Elsight, Elsight Halo
Third Place: MatrixSpace, MatrixSpace Networked Radar

Hardware & Systems Design
First Place: D-Fend Solutions, EnforceAir
Second Place: Advanced Navigation, Hydrus
Third Place: Connect Tech, Anvil Embedded System with NVIDIA® Jetson AGX Orin™

Software Design and Coding
First Place: BlueSpace.ai, Scalable and Explainable AI for Autonomy, powered by 4D Predictive Perception
Second Place: Skydio, Skydio Scout, Situational Awareness for Moving Convoys
Third Place: AlarisPro, Inc., AlarisPro Safety Ecosystem (ASE) - Advancing UAS Reliability Through Shared Data Across UAS Operators and Manufacturers

XCELLENCE in Workforce Development
First Place: Laurel Ridge Community College, Laurels Take Flight
Second Place: DroneUp, with partner, Richard Bland College, Established the First Commercial Drone Workforce Training Program for College Credit 
Third Place: Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Worldwide and Warren College, Better Together: Producing Effective Educational Opportunities for the UAS Workforce

The recipients of the 2023 AUVSI XCELLENCE Humanitarian and Public Safety Awards have established themselves as leaders in the application of uncrewed technology to provide solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. Each awards category recognizes organizations that have made a significant impact using uncrewed systems to serve in humanitarian or public safety efforts. The six organizations will equally divide a $6,000 prize for their ground-breaking humanitarian and public safety efforts.

This year’s recipients are:

XCELLENCE in Mission

Humanitarian Project/Program
ArroTech, Rapid and Accurate Autonomous UXO Detection
MissionGO, Inc., Operation Healing Eagle Feather
The David McAntony Gibson Foundation (GlobalMedic), GlobalMedic RescUAV Response to La Soufrière Volcano in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Public Safety
DRONERESPONDERS, DRONERESPONDERS Public Safety Alliance
Texas Department of Public Safety, Texas Department of Public Safety
United States Forest Service, Testing and Scaling New Technologies for Operations and Safer Mixed Airspace Ops