Wonderful problem to solve for engineering students.
AI x Space | Ex-Scientist ISRO | Antarctic Expeditionary | MBA | BTech IIST
ISRO has opened an extremely interesting challenge to Students. Navigate an Aerial Vehicle with a Camera feed. No GPS on MARS 😀 A closed loop feed back system. More details here ⬇️ One of ISRO’s future goal is the exploration of Martian surface and as a part of Martian surface exploration, an Autonomous Aerial Vehicle will carry out scientific activities. ISRO solicits from the youth of India, innovative ideas and designs in the area of navigation for future missions through the conduct of Robotics Challenge. The IRoC-U 2025 challenges the students to develop ‘Autonomous Navigation for an Aerial Vehicle (ANAV)’ without any external navigation aid like GNSS, pseudolite or reflector arrays with a tagline ‘Fly me on MARS’ The challenge on Martian surface is non-availability of any external navigation aid like GNSS, pseudolite or reflector arrays. Hence, a dedicated navigation technique required for aerial vehicles for exploration of Martian surface. Hence current challenge focuses only on developing and demonstrating navigation and guidance techniques rather than building aerial vehicles. Students can use/develop any available (off-the-shelf) aerial vehicle complying with existing DGCA rules. ——————————- ANAV has to perform the following tasks during the various rounds of the challenge. Stable Vertical take-off, hover and landing. ANAV shall scan the arena to identify the boundary, and the safe spots for landing. ANAV shall choose the sequence and stable landing at each safe spot. After safe landing, the ANAV shall return to the home position. —————————— All the budding Graduate/Post Graduate and PhD students are eligible for this. And most inportantly Team can have at most two mentors, one of whom must be a faculty from the parent institute and other may be from the Parent Institute/ Industry. Last time for the Robotics challenge URoC 2023 , I had mentored two teams and I personally saw them growing leaps and bounds in their Engineering skills while working for this project So this is a must attempt for all colleges and students as a learning experience. Do share this with every student you know who wants to build for India and SPACE! PS : Application details in comment section Most students in Tier-3 colleges are talented but don’t have exposure. Please do personally tell them to attempt this challenge.
