FAQ             

Introduction

1. The Autonomous Ground Vehicle will be part of the future combat force to carry out tasks that would otherwise be difficult for a conventional manned vehicle. These autonomous robots are innovative and cost-effective situational awareness systems that serve and protect military, law enforcement and security professionals engaged in low-intensity conflict and anti-terrorism activities in urban & unstructured environments. These robots will be part of the Low Intensity Conflict / Explosive Ordinance Disposal (LIC/EOD) program and Homeland Security to carry out tasks into a variety of undesirable, hazardous, and potentially life-threatening environments in stealth and NBC threats. In order to navigate autonomously, the vehicle must be mounted with sensors for evaluating the terrain and have software for interpreting the data, path planning to decide a safe course of action, and control to oversee that plan. Sensing and interpretation of the terrain and environment are the most challenging tasks. Generation of terrain profile, detection of positive and negative obstacles, lethal drop off, safe down slope, pothole, waterhole, Geometric profile, penetrability and compressibility are to be understood for autonomous navigation. The technologies for the autonomous navigation is multidisciplinary which includes kinematics, Real time perception system, Multi sensors data fusion, Localization & Path planning and Robust vehicle control

2. The tasks that could be given to such a vehicle would be:-
   (a) Operation in contaminated environments.
   (b) Reconnaissance & Target Identification.
   (c) Target designation & engagement.
   (d) Minefield detection & neutralisation.
   (e) Logistics.

Towards building autonomous navigation capability, DRDO is conducting a national level competition to harness the innovative ideas of our Student community to the National Robotics Program of India.

Aim:

 To build an autonomous off road robotic platform which can navigate a rough terrain and avoid natural & man made obstacles in the shortest amount of time.

Problem Definition:

1.      The robot should complete a closed loop obstacle course of 500m consisting of various hurdles within an anticipated time of 20 min using Autonomous Navigation.

2.      Maximum robot speed should be 10 kmph and maximum robot speed should be limited by hardware.

3.      Robot should carry a max payload of 20 kg.

4.      The robot should navigate with the help of GPS waypoints & Land marks.

5.      Facility for wireless E-Stop during emergency should be provided.

6.      Type of locomotion to be chosen by the students and it should be self powered in all respects.

7.      The robot should navigate the terrain while avoiding static positive hard obstacles.

8.      Maximum width of the robot should be 1m.

9.      Course position & exact obstacle positions will be provided one hour before the event.

10.  Width of the lane: maximum is 3m and minimum is 1.2 m.

11.  Terrain details:
(a) Sand 3 inches of depth.
(b) Gravel size of 2inches.
(c) Gradient with an up/down maximum slope of 15 Deg.
(d) Staircase climbing up to a maximum of 6 steps up and down (7 inches height x 10 inches tread).
(e) 8 Corrugations with a maximum radius of 8 inches and pitch 16 inches.
(f) Lane following by color detection.

Conduct of the Competition

1. The competition will be conducted in two stages as under:

(a) Stage I (Preliminary Design): System configuration details comprising of sensors, observation, data processing mechanism and support system should form part of the design approach paper to be submitted for the stage1 evaluation. A committee of experts will evaluate the proposals from the point of view of approach to the problem, innovation, originality, technical feasibility etc. Ten best design solutions will be selected to take part in Stage II of the competition.

(b) Stage II (Prototype): A suitable prototype based on the Stage I approach paper, alongwith detailed design document will have to be submitted for design evaluation and demonstration trials on the day of the final competition.

2. Awards/ Prize Money.

(a) Stage 1: Ten prizes of Rs 1,00,000/- each. (Total Rs 10,00,000/-)

(b) Stage 2:

(c) Theme Prize:

3.       The time plan and schedule for conduct of the competition is given below: -

Detailed rules and requirements for submissions

1. General.
   (a) The competition is open to Third and fourth year students of Engineering colleges and institutions in India.
   (b) Not more than two teams can be nominated from each college or Institution.
   (c) Team strength can be upto a maximum of eight students, including a designated team leader. However, only four students will be invited to Chennai for the final event.
   (d) With due acceptance of the management of the colleges / institutions, students of more than one college / institutions can take part as one team. This should be reflected in the single nomination Performa by signatures of the heads of all the respective institutions.
   (e) Students may take the help of one guide / supervisor.
    

2.      Stage I.
(a) The design approach paper submitted at stage I should be for a practical realization later in stage II.
(b) A one page abstract highlighting the innovation and the design approach should be submitted alongwith the design paper.
(c) The design approach paper should not be more than 10 pages excluding the figures / sketches etc.
(d) Filled Performa (click here to download) duly countersigned and stamped by the college / institution authorities in the space provided.
(e) Form of undertaking (click here to download) duly filled and countersigned by the college / institution authorities.
(f) Hard copies of entries should be sent to the address mentioned below:

(g) Scanned soft copy of the filled / signed Performa and Undertaking and soft copies of the entries as explained above should also be sent to vivek.kaul@hqr.drdo.in, vedprc@gmail.com, robot_drdo2010@yahoo.com for perusal of the screening committee. Mail attachments of upto 25 MB can be sent through this mail id.

3. Stage II.
   (a) Stage II of the competition will be held at CVRDE, Chennai.
   (b) Other details will be posted here on completion of Stage I.