Robot designers prepare for NI competition

The robot designers of tomorrow are preparing to face off in the arena at the National Instruments (NI) Autonomous Robotics Competition in Melbourne on 21 September.

More than 20 student teams from leading universities across Australia and New Zealand are busy preparing to pass the third milestone in the lead up to the competition, which challenges entrants to build an autonomous robot to function in a simulated search and rescue environment.

With a theme of ‘Search and Rescue’, this year’s competition will focus on the areas of navigation, obstacle avoidance and object handling.

“The competition is an exciting platform both for engineering students to showcase their creative and technical skills as they delve into the world of robotics, and for universities to build their position in this important space,” Managing Director for National Instruments Oceania, Matej Krajnc said.

“From mining to defence, robotics has become integral to a vast number of advanced applications where performance, precision, safety and reliability are of the highest priority.

We are seeing significant growth in demand as well as very innovative approaches to challenging applications in these areas,” Matej said.

All teams are required to successfully achieve four milestone tasks with the help of NI engineers in the lead up to the competition to ensure they are prepared and meet the technical requirements to compete in the final.

The competition final will be held at Swinburne University of Technology Hawthorn campus, whose student team won the inaugural event last year.