High Gain Antenna Gimbal (HGAG) for the rover Perseverance of the Mars 2020 mission
About us About us / section Markets Markets / section ProjectsAEROSPACE & DEFENSE
ENERGY
MOBILITY
Careers Careers / sectionCountriessection About us About us / section Markets Markets / section Projects Careers Careers / sectionCountriessectionIn addition to the overall prize of €1,200, the ‘Rovernetas’ team from the UPC won the Technology Prize (€1,000); the ‘Talos’ team from the European University of Madrid won the Design Prize (€800).
Students from the universities Carlos III de Madrid, Europea de Madrid, Politécnica de Madrid and Politécnica de Cataluña have designed, assembled and programmed an autonomous terrestrial rover, based on the same set of parts provided by Sener and the design published by NASA, on which they have been working since the beginning of the year and which they put to the test in the final of the ‘Sener’s Bot Talent’ competition, held in Tres Cantos (Madrid).
The Sener Foundation has held at its headquarters in Tres Cantos the final of the robotics competition applied to autonomous vehicles ‘Sener’s Bot Talent’, aimed at university teams made up of final year and master’s degree students. The winning team was from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), the ‘Rovernetas’ team, which won the overall prize of €1,200. Teams from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), Universidad Europea de Madrid (UEM) and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) also took part in the competition.
During the trials, held in Tres Cantos, the teams applied their skills as engineering students to solve various problems related to the guidance, navigation, and control of an autonomous ground vehicle in a real environment. The groups created and programmed an autonomous land rover using the same set of parts provided by Sener and the design published by NASA, which they have been working on since the beginning of the year and put to the test in the final.
The participants demonstrated their ability to perceive the vehicle’s environment, control actuators and plan trajectories in a real environment by passing several specific tests that evaluated the accuracy of movement, identification of objects through image processing, localisation with a Kalman filter (a very useful mathematical tool for including real-world measurements in a system) and route planning.
The professional jury, appointed by the Sener Foundation and Sener and made up of 5 judges and 3 supporting members (including Sener professionals and members of the Spanish Automation Committee), assessed each aspect of the teams’ performance.
In addition to the main prize, two additional prizes were awarded: the Technological Prize, which recognises the most innovative solution adopted by the participants, and the Design Prize, which values the cleanliness and neatness of the assembly of the rover.
The winner of the Technology Prize, worth €1,000, was also the UPC team. The €800 design prize was won by the ‘Talos’ team from the UEM.
