BITS Pilani’s Project Kratos secured 2nd rank at Anatolian Rover Challenge, Turkey
02 August 2022
Project Kratos, a Mars Rover team from BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa Campus secured a worldwide rank of 2nd and stood 1st in Asia in the finals of the Anatolian Rover Challenge (ARC) held in Istanbul, Turkey. The team has also been awarded the best ‘Autonomous and Controls Vertical’ and ‘Science Vertical’ by consensus of the Judges and Jury. Kratos scored the most points amongst all the teams in Mission 3 (Testing capabilities of Robotic Arm) and Mission 4 (Testing Science vertical), with a 98 out of 100 score in the latter. Prof. Suman Kundu, Director of BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa Campus congratulated the team on behalf of the Institute.
The Challenge, held from 22nd to 25th July 2022, was organized by the Space Exploration Society (UKET), and the final round of the competition hosted over 12 participant teams from all across the world. The competition was highly multidisciplinary and the tasks tested every aspect of the rover. Besides BITS Pilani, IIT Madras was another team from India that participated in the finals.
The various challenges in competition included picking soil samples and identifying them for signs of life, using a robotic arm to lift and manipulate heavy payloads and traversing autonomously through undulating terrain.
The project has participated in the Indian Rover Challenge 2020, the International Mars Hackathon (IMH) conducted by MSSA, International Rover Design Challenge (IRDC) 2021 and URC 2022. At the International Rover Challenge 2020, Project Kratos has qualified top among the new teams. The team secured the topmost position among the Indian competitors, ranked 2nd in Asia and finished 20th worldwide in URC 2022 (held in June 2022 at Utah, the USA). In the Science Task category, the team ranked 12th worldwide.
The students’ team was led by Mr. Saurabh Kalra and supervised by Prof. Toby Joseph (Faculty at Dept. of Physics).