FADA CATEC makes the AL ROBOTICS team with the University of Seville and the GMV company, the only Spanish group that has received funding from the organization to participate in the challenges of this prestigious competition
A team of researchers and engineers from FADA-CATEC, the University of Seville, and the Company GMV has been selected to participate next March 2017 in one of the biggest international robotics competitions, the Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC), organized by the University of Khalifa to be held in Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates).
The MBZIRC competition is one of the most prestigious competitions in this area, which is celebrated for the first time, and aims to expose the latest advances, scientific developments andtechnologies in the world of robotics. All of participating researchers and scientists from countries all over the world will have to overcome various challenges posed by the organization by using autonomous aerial or ground robots.
The team made up of FADA-CATEC, the University of Seville, and GMV is called “AL ROBOTICS,” and is the only Spanish team that received funding from the organization to participate in the competition. The team also received support from an Andalusian company, Dronetools, which is participating as a sponsor of the event.
The competition will feature 46 teams from leading universities and robotics research centers around the world, mainly from the USA, Europe and Asia. FADA-CATEC will provide its experience in diverse R&D European projects, in which it has already achieved important milestones like the development of systems of robotic manipulation with articulated arms integrated in aerial robots for use in various tasks, or the landing of autonomous helicopters in a mobile platform carried by a moving ground vehicle.
The MBZIRC initiative includes three challenges: the first one requires an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to locate, track and land on top of a moving ground vehicle; the second challenge requires an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) to locate and reach a second ground vehicle, and locate and physically operate a valve on a side of the vehicle; and the last challenge requires a team of three UAVs to collaborate to search, locate, track, pick and place a set of static and moving objects.