European Rover Challenge is a competition for Mars rovers that will be organized for the first time not only in Poland but in the whole Europe. The competition is based on University Rover Challenge – annual competition organized at a desert in the USA. Students of our University will also take part in the competition.
Mars Society Polska is the organizer of the event that will take place between 5th and 7th September. So far, teams from the USA, Canada, India, Columbia, Egypt, Germany, and Poland have filed their applications, others can still do it until 30th April.
The task for the teams will be to design and build a Mars rover ready to accomplish tasks similar to Mars missions. The vehicle will have to cope with e.g. repair missions by navigating in the terrain, collecting soil samples, and analyzing them. All these activities will be performed remotely, which means that the teams will not have eye contact with the rover, like in real Mars conditions. The only tools that will allow to steer the vehicle and negotiate obstacles will be the on-board camera and the GPS.
Students from the Wrocław University of Technology OFF-ROAD Scientific Circle have already filed their application.
“We want our Scorpio 4 rover to have an entirely modular structure, so that we can test each part separately. We are also working on enhancing the rover’s capabilities. The new robot will be a mobile platform on which professional inspection equipment can be installed.” – told the ”Nauka w Polsce” website Szymon Dzwończyk, coordinator of the Wrocław University of Technology team – “We can see how many teams from all over the world apply for the competition. We try to set the bar high for us and we hope that the level of ERC (European Rover Challenge) will be higher than that of URC (University Rover Challenge).
More details available at: ”Nauka w Polsce” and www.roverchallenge.eu
l
Translation: Dariusz Więcławski
|