Meet the Teams: HORYZN

What happens when about 40 of the best and brightest young minds in engineering from around the world enroll at the same university with the goal of taking drone technology to the next level and doing so for practical use cases?

"We're here to build great things. We're here to build unique systems," declares Maciej Guzik, who is pursuing a master's degree in aerospace engineering at the Technical University of Munich. 

Team Horyzn Prototype

Even more succinctly, exclaims his university mate Lucas Lindner, who is finishing his bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering, "we're here to take part in history, to revolutionize the way emergency rescue is achieved by air."

To achieve such a lofty goal, Maciej and Lucas are part of HORYZN, the TUM team competing in GoAERO, the global challenge to create an entirely new class of emergency response vehicles – flyers that will be more efficient and effective than helicopters, drones, and ambulances are in responding to natural and man-made disasters, extreme weather catastrophes, and medical emergencies.

HORYZN has already taken the first step in what it hopes will be its history-making endeavor. It was recently named one of 11 winners of GoAERO's Stage 1, which focused on the design of the flyers in competition.

"The Stage 1 Prize is a significant milestone for our team," says Alex Raicu, a master's degree student in aerospace and one of the team captains with Maciej. "It will support us in the development of the 35% scale prototype for Stage 2, as well as in the procurement of components for our full-scale prototype, which we will test before integrating them on the aircraft."

Team HORYZN members from Technical University of Munich

HORYZN's aircraft is a distributed propulsion electric vertical take-off and landing vehicle or eVTOL. Its electronics and propulsion systems are optimized for the efficiency required in productivity and maneuvering missions and the robustness needed in adversity missions. Moreover, the drone's structural design keeps the necessary structural integrity and rapid assembly at the forefront.

The team's enthusiastic quest for history and the confidence team members have that they will succeed is rooted in what it has previously achieved. In the Mission Pulse challenge, HORYZN focused on developing a fixed-wing eVTOL unmanned autonomous vehicle to deliver a defibrillator to a patient at an emergency site.

According to Jonas Neu, head of HORYZN's fuselage design team, who is pursuing a master's degree in aerospace engineering, GoAERO "aligns with our team's history. We've built eVTOLS for delivering defibrillators. This is the perfect next step for us."

"We optimized our aircraft and flew our prototype Kolibri last year," Alex adds. "Now, we're looking to top what we've already done. There are all these extreme weather problems, both close to home and far away. The 2021 flooding in Germany (the deadliest natural disaster in the country since 1962), earthquakes in Turkey (in 2023, two quakes of 7.8 and 7.5 magnitude occurred in less than nine hours), and, of course, the wildfires in California. 

So many people were affected. It got us thinking less about medical delivery and more on emergency response. "In pursuit of a new project to push the team in this direction, he explains, "we came across the GOAERO Prize, which lines up with our mission of developing unmanned aerial vehicles for medical use cases. Our interest in emergency response innovation lies in building autonomous systems capable of operating in high-pressure, time-critical environments. Personally, I really love engineering and medical use cases at the same time. In my family, there are a lot of doctors. There can't be a better use for aerospace engineering than medical cases."

The HORYZN team has three overarching goals:

• Successfully complete all three missions at the GoAERO fly-off to demonstrate versatility in emergency response applications.

• Drive innovation in emergency response within the Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) sector across Germany and Europe.

• Foster the development of our team members' skills and inspire them to pursue impactful technologies for societal good.

Maciej is especially attuned to the third point: "Using innovation to solve problems, using technology to solve problems, is what engineering is all about," he says. "So, this resonates deeply with me."

Lucas, the HORYZN team's business lead, echoes this sentiment, noting that natural disasters occur more often than most people think. "I come from Rio where flooding is constant, even in normal weather conditions, every single year. So, I'm hoping to that our infrastructure will save countless lives."

Adds Vincent Mattheij, the aerostructures team lead studying for his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, "This is a big next step for us to hopefully save lives, going from defibrillator deliveries to carrying humans. It's amazing, and I'm really looking forward to this opportunity."

Similarly, Agustina, the Aerostructures team lead, maintains that it is "very cool to be working on something that actually makes a difference, that makes a real impact in the real world. What could be more exciting than that."

In addition to its experience and success with their earlier vehicle that delivered defibrillators, HORYZN's team members cite another competitive advantage they are confident will serve them well in GoAERO:  being students at TUM, which was founded over 150 years ago with the purpose of educating and training students to apply their classroom lessons for practical use cases.

"Being at a university such as ours, with so many people who are passionate about drone technology and development, plus the vast pool of excellent students, gives us an edge," Maciej asserts. "Everything we bring to the table – the various perspectives and experiences. We didn't just sign up just to have fun. We're here to build great things."

To do so, Vicente Serna says being able to "apply the knowledge I'm gaining in the classroom and my passion for automation and control systems, is what draws me to this really cool project."

Ankit Kasi – who is studying for his master's degree in aerospace and who exclaims that engineering a flyer for GoAERO is "the coolest experience ever" – says that the diversity of perspectives and experiences is a key differential. "We have so many different experiences, bachelor's degrees from around the world," he notes. "So, there is much we can achieve because of this, even things that we don't even know about yet. Diversity helps us do and be the best we can."

Pranit Sonigra, who is pursuing a bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering and is leading the electronics team, also points to the "cool" factor. "It's really cool for electronics engineers to build and see stuff fly. It excites all of us, just as it does for all people."

"It's a sandbox environment here," Alex relates. "We bring all these perspectives, experiences, and knowledge into developing something great, on a very purposeful course. Having the entire team behind one central theme, one common goal, it's incredible to be a part of it."

Other team members include: Marta Pietraszko, Lara Lindner, Simon Wahl, Aqib Habib, Nicolas Cunha, Nicolas Ebeling, Samuel Alejandro Melendez Guerrero, Agustina Ulloa Romero, Sankar Suresh, Surya Palaniappan, Clarisse Truong, Hafil Ali Mohammad, Diana Grajales, Joel Eldo, Cornelius Czuprin, Adrian Reigosa Rico, Chaithanya Krishna Rao, Dain Jee, Fiona Hoxha, Benjamin Hor, Vinzent Götze, Mohamed Kacem Toumi, Issam Ayache, Anna Kowalewska, Phillip Assmann, Ani Mallick, Andrii Chumak, Keshav Verma, Nikita Shirokov, Katharina Behling, Hank Wu, Nerea Ramon Cosgaya, Jarom Schlien, and Rasmitha Koganti.