At the large international MBZIRC robot competition, DTU received a silver and bronze medal respectively in two of the competition's challenges.
At the large international MBZIRC robot competition, DTU received a silver and bronze medal respectively in two of the competition's challenges.
At MBZIRC, Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotic Challenge, a major international robotics competition held in Abu Dhabi in February, DTU has achieved two very good results. The other competition participants come from some of the world’s other leading universities in robotics technology, including the German Universität Bonn, Swiss ETH Zurich, and KAIST from South Korea.
"I am very satisfied with our efforts, which document that we are on the forefront of robotics at DTU," says professor Ole Ravn, DTU Electrical Engineering, who has led the team of eight students and five researchers. DTU is the only Danish university that has participated in the competition.
Tasks reflect future use of robots
The competition consisted of a total of three different challenges reflecting the tasks that we would like to see robots and drones perform in the future.
"It were some very complex tasks that the organizers had set which required good preparation and fine-tuning during the competition," says Ole Ravn.
All three challenges involved participants using a self-driving robot and four drones which had to work together to solve the tasks on their own. In one challenge, they had to put out the fire in a high-rise building model. This was done by first locating the places in the building that was on fire and then dousing the flames with water. The robots entered the building by either driving through the door or flying in through the windows. All without any human operation.
DTU has boosted the robotics and automation field
DTU participated in the MBZIRC competition for the first time in 2017. The University received a silver medal in one of the competition challenges in that year.
Since then, the University has been focusing intensively on the whole robotics and automation field. Among other initiatives, a new Master’s degree programme in autonomous systems has been established at DTU. In addition, the University is currently constructing a test arena for use for practical tests with drones and robots, in the air, on the ground, and in water. The test arena will become part of DTU’s new Centre for Collaborative Autonomous Systems, and is a unique facility for both students and researchers unrivalled by other universities in Europe.
The overall winner of the MBZIRC robotic competition was the combined team from Czech Technical University in Prague, University of Pennsylvania and New York University. See all winners at: Mbzirc.com