They will compete for the top spot against four other teams from Australia, the Czech Republic, Spain and the United States.

A total of 225 teams from 82 countries qualified for the first round of the Airbus Fly Your Ideas contest, launched in October last year.

In January, the number of teams in the three-round competition was whittled down to 86, including seven from Singapore.

The NUS team that made it to the top five, Solaire Voyager, came up with a design for an aircraft which runs partially on solar power.

The idea was inspired by hybrid engines in cars and merchant vessels.

Team leader Louis Lee, 27, and teammates Muhammad Adil, 22, and Vignesh Subramaniam, 19, have been meeting on the weekends and sometimes twice a week since the competition began.

The five teams will make their final presentations to a panel of Airbus representatives and industry experts at the Paris Air Show next month.

The top team will win 30,000 euros (S$58,978).