1. About Us
Team DJS ANTARIKSH is the official rover challenge team of the EXTC department of Dwarkadas J Sanghvi College of Engineering (DJSCE), Mumbai aiming to participate in the European Rover Challenge and the Indian Rover Challenge for the year 2020-2021. The team was founded in the academic year 2019 – 2020. The team participated in 2 major competition in the AY 2020 which are the European Rover Challenge and International Mars Hackathon.
Click here for visuals on DJS Antariksh.
2. Team Formation:
Team DJS ANTARIKSH is an outcome of DJ Strike. DJ Strike is a mentorship program run over complete academic year. Since academic year 2020-21, the same has been included in the Autonomous curriculum of the department. The team is an extension of the Autonomous Tomato Harvester project. The DJ Strike activtity is mentored under the guidance of EXTC HOD Dr. Amit Deshmukh along with Porf. Yukti Bandi, Prof. Tushar Sawant & Prof. Venkataramanan V.
3. Team Achievements ERC 2020:
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We have secured Overall 3rd Position globally from 33 international teams
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Won the Best Science Planning award among all teams in ERC 2020
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Stood 1st from Asia and we are the first ever team in the history of the competition from Asia to secure a place in the Top 3.
4. Team Achievements International Mars Hackathon 2020:
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The team stood 8th out of 24 national and International teams
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The team stood 6th from India
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The team stood 1st from Mumbai and Maharashtra
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The team achieved a score of 160.25 out of 180
1. Competition Summary
The Rover Challenge competitions invite undergraduate students to build their own customized rovers according to competition guidelines and Problem statement. The problem statement has slight changes each year increasing the complexity of the rover. The Competitions aim to provide solutions to the space exploration industry through the brainstorming of young minds.
European Rover Challenge: (http://roverchallenge.eu/)
The European Rover Challenge is organized by the European Space Agency (ESA) and Mars Society, Polska. The ERC is held in Poland since its inception in 2014. The ERC 2020 was held from 11th to 13th September.
ERC 2020 was made virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the events were conducted remotely just like real life mars rovers are controlled from earth.
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Science and Navigation task: A rover provided by the organizers in Kielce University, had to be controlled remotely. The rover had to reach 5 waypoints in the MarsYard (simulated Mars environment) and collect evidence for a science mission in the from of photographs.
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Maintenance Task: The team had to remotely control a 6-axis robotic arm and actuate a switch panel.
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Presentation Task: The team had to present the overall management approach during the pandemic.
University Rover Challenge: (http://urc.marssociety.org/)
The University Rover Challenge is organized by Mars Society, USA. It is held in the month of June every year in Hanksville, Utah at the Mars Desert research station. URC 2021 will be held from 3rd to 5th June.
Indian Rover Challenge: (https://www.facebook.com/indianroverchallenge/)
The Indian Rover Challenge is organized by the Mars Society South Asia (MSSA). The IRC is the only competition of its kind in the Asia Pacific region. The 2020 edition will be hosted by VIT Chennai from 17th- 21st January 2020.
International Mars Hackathon:
The IMH is an online Hackathon organized for the first time in 2020 by Mars Society South Asia. The teams have to brainstorm and come up with solutions for challenges about colonization of Mars. The problems range from the engineering and scientific challenges to the management of future Mars missions. The competition took place on 31st October – 1st November, 2020.
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Project Description
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Science task
The aim of the task is to obtain samples of surface and subsurface layers of the soil each taken from four different locations specified by judge. Samples should be cached into prepared containers. Additionally, in-situ measurements and automatic documentation (photographic etc.) of collection place as well as samples will be scored.
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Maintenance task
The maintenance task is intended to demonstrate rovers and team’s ability and performance in operating electrical panel on which several switches and other electrical components are mounted. The Team must use rover’s manipulating device to set switches to correct positions, measure electrical parameters, set other panel controls and observe device feedback.
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Collection task
This task is intended to demonstrate ability to perform RFID cache fetching scenario. The Team has to reach locations marked on map, search and pick up the RFID cache and place it into container on-board in a required orientation, then deliver container with caches to final destination.
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Traverse task
This task is intended to demonstrate system ability of semi to fully autonomous traverse. The Team must develop a project which gradually evolves into fully autonomous system, traversing and gathering important data on its way. At early stage, system can be decoupled with operator in the loop, but all planning and parameters estimation operations must be done by system itself. This limits operator to navigate rover blindly i.e. without access to visual or other reach spatial information. However, any kind of data can be processed on-board providing operator support information about localization and operation. The smart navigation strategy, sensor fusion and image data processing are essential in this task.
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Presentation Task
Project Review-The presentation task lets teams to introduce themselves and present their projects. The Judges expect to learn how the team worked on the project, what kind of technical solutions are implemented in the rover and how the team solved problems and issues occurred during development. The Team should be also prepared for Q&A session.
All the above tasks need to be performed at the event site. Autonomous operations of all the above rover tasks are preferred however the teams can switch on to manual tele-operation during the task but the team will lose points.
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Student Benefit and Outcome:
The competition deals with almost all engineering spectrums, ranging from Mechanical Design and Manufacturing, Electronic System development with sensor integration and Audio, Visual and Data Transmission over a communication channel and autonomous operation using Image processing and Machine learning.
1. Students interested in Space technology have a good opportunity to learn and later on work in the space industry.
2. The competition provides an overall experience of a space mission carried out by ISRO, NASA, etc
3. The competition will give an exposure to the practical application of our academic studies.
4. Students can showcase their talent and innovative ideas.
5. It will provide an opportunity to learn team-work and corporate ethics by being in a team.
6. It provides a good experience of participating in various national and international competitions.
7. It will also help the students in building their resume.
DJS Antariksh IMH 2020 report
DJS Antariksh ERC 2020 Milestones