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Source: The Daily Star

The UIU Mars rover team’s TELOS Mars rover prototype and ICARUS companion aerial subsystem recently won first place in Asia in the University Rover Challenge 2023.

This is the second year in a row that UIU has finished first among Asian teams in the Universal Rover Challenge (URC), with its rover named MAVEN also finishing first in Asia in the previous URC. This year, the UIU team finished ninth out of 37 worldwide finalists.They finished 13th out of 36 worldwide finalists last year.

The Mars Society, a nonprofit organization that promotes Mars exploration for research and development, hosts an international rover showcase competition called the University Rover Challenge. This year, 104 teams from 15 different nations competed in the worldwide competition, with the final round held from June 1 to 3 at the Mars Desert Research Station in Hanksville, Utah, USA.

The team had to present a compelling System Acceptance Review (SAR) film in the first round, which showcased the rover’s capabilities in executing multiple missions like as terrain traversal, equipment servicing, scientific investigation, and autonomous operations. TELOS also demonstrated its ability to conduct scientific experiments and analyze soil and rock samples for signs of potential life.

The SAR movie demonstrated TELOS’s basic electronic and communication technologies, as well as its testing and operation robustness. TELOS had a SAR score of 93.06 out of 100, placing it among the 37 finalists from around the world.

Akib Zaman, Lecturer at United International University’s Department of Computer Science & Engineering, leads the team. Md Abid Hossain from EEE, UIU, led the student team. Ahmed Junaed (CSE), T M Al Anam (CSE), Suraiya Afroz Maria (CSE), Sheikh Sakib Hossain (CSE), Shah Mehrab Hossain Fahim (CSE), Md Yasin (CSE), Abdullah Al Masud (CSE), Shorower Hossain (CSE), and Md Bodiuzzaman Shikder (EEE) completed the visiting team.

“This achievement is a source of immense pride for the team, as it demonstrates their ability to compete on a global stage and showcases the talent and potential that resides within their university and the entire Asian region,” says Akib Zaman. According to him, the team hopes that this achievement would encourage future generations of kids to pursue STEM jobs. “Hopefully, this will also instill in them the belief that they can achieve great things through dedication and hard work,” Akib added.