Native AI Software and Systems Engineering for UAVs

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course prepares senior-level students to engineer software in an AI-assisted development environment (e.g., Claude), with an emphasis on cyber-physical systems (CPS) in the UAV domain. Students learn disciplined workflows for prompting, architecture design, testing and validation, and systematic review within AI-supported engineering processes. Rather than building standalone simulators, students develop and evaluate software within an existing UAV simulation environment that integrates sensing, control, and mission logic. In a structured team project, students (1) engineer UAV software components, (2) design and integrate an agentic decision-making layer for autonomous behavior, and (3) build an operator-facing application that supports safe supervision and evaluation of autonomous operations. Throughout the course, students practice accountable AI-assisted development and defend quality claims with empirical evidence and appropriate software engineering metrics. PREREQUISITES: (Programming Paradigms OR Object Oriented Software Engineering) AND Introduction to AI