University of California Santa Barbara electrical and computer engineering graduates Adailton Nali Junior and Ryan Conolley were integral to the UCSB team that secured its third consecutive victory in the West Coast division of Raytheon’s Autonomous Vehicle Competition (AVC). UCSB has claimed first place in this division every year since its inception, highlighting the university's consistent excellence in developing advanced autonomous systems. The competition challenges students to design and build a mission-ready autonomous delivery system that pairs a drone with a ground vehicle, testing their capabilities in real-world scenarios.
The Raytheon-sponsored project serves as a senior capstone for students, encompassing electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and an understanding of environmental factors crucial for product navigation. Adailton Nali Junior, who graduated with his ECE degree in 2025, selected this project as his top choice during his fourth year. He later noted that the product development experience gained directly aligned with the skills sought by his new employer, leading to a systems engineering position in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Raytheon’s AVC began in 2020 in the Dallas area with four universities, expanding to Puerto Rico before adding East and West Coast competitions in 2023. Now, 24 university teams across the country participate annually, dedicating the academic year to constructing competitive drones and ground vehicles. Leonard Chen, director of technology development for Raytheon, emphasizes that the competition's core lies in the challenge itself. He noted that the assignment evolves each year, compelling students to innovate and create systems capable of adapting to new conditions, rather than merely replicating past designs. Past challenges have included drones locating markers using random search patterns and communicating positions to delivery vehicles, or drones landing on moving vehicles while ground vehicles navigated obstacles without GPS.
Mr. Chen indicated these evolving challenges are designed to cover technology areas of interest to Raytheon, such as object tracking, computer engineering, and artificial intelligence. Beyond technical skills, the competition also provides invaluable experience in team dynamics, requiring students from diverse disciplines and backgrounds to collaborate effectively within tight timelines. Mr. Chen described it as providing “a real-world experience of what we face within our own company.”
A crucial component of the program is the mentorship students receive from Raytheon professionals. Ryan Conolley, a UCSB alumnus who holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in ECE, now serves as a chief engineer at Raytheon and dedicates every Friday afternoon during the school year to advising the UCSB capstone team on campus. Mr. Conolley’s connection to the program deepened when he collaborated with Mr. Chen at Raytheon, where his master’s project was sponsored. He saw the West Coast AVC as an ideal opportunity to give back to his alma mater and its students.
The program strengthens the ties between Raytheon and UCSB, with several former AVC capstone students subsequently joining Raytheon and even returning as mentors. These mentors meet regularly with students as the competition approaches, offering both project guidance and career advice. Junior affirmed the critical role of mentors, calling them “a game-changer” and noting their value in discussing job roles and important skills.
This reciprocal support is evident in activities such as Mr. Conolley bringing students to Raytheon’s Goleta facility to present their final projects to his colleagues. He explained this fosters morale among mentors and employees, demonstrating Raytheon's commitment to community involvement.
The engineers at Raytheon, including those at the West Coast Competition held this year at Santa Barbara City College, have consistently been impressed by the student work. The most recent competition awarded bonus points for the integration of artificial intelligence into designs for obstacle identification. Mr. Conolley highlighted that UCSB was the sole institution among all 24 participating schools nationwide to successfully implement and complete the AI challenge, which involved tying a camera feed into an AI chip. This achievement led to a special award for the student who spearheaded the AI component of the project.
While the competition itself provides a visible culmination of efforts, the daily work on the capstone project is what truly cultivates career-ready skills. Mr. Conolley advises students at the beginning of the year that “this capstone project is probably their most important class they will ever take.” He stated that developing an AI-driven drone with video capabilities and managing weekly engineering team meetings provides students with experiences highly valuable in interviews and the workplace, asserting its uniqueness among four-year undergraduate programs.
Junior, who served as project lead during the 2024-25 academic year, reflected on the significant shift from traditional classroom structures to a self-motivated environment. He emphasized the necessity of setting one’s own deadlines, solving unforeseen problems, and ensuring high-standard delivery, equating this experience to the reality of working in a professional company. He encouraged future capstone students to invest fully, promising that the effort would be incredibly rewarding and formative.