Students prepare for Autonomous Robotics Competition

Engineering and mechatronics students from leading Australian and New Zealand universities are preparing to face off in the final of the National Instruments (NI) Autonomous Robotics Competition in Melbourne.

“The competition is a stage for students to showcase their creative and technical capabilities as they delve into the world of robotics, spurred on by friendly rivalry with their fellow engineering and mechatronics students at other universities,” said Dr Jeannie Falcon, Chief Control and Simulation Engineer for NI, who toured Australia last week.

More than 20 teams are competing to build an autonomous robot that will navigate an obstacle-filled course and identify, pick up and move objects to designated locations in the shortest possible time. All teams have successfully passed two of four milestone tasks in the competition under the guidance of academic supervisors and with support from NI engineers.

Participating teams each received a $20,000 development kit including an NI Single Board RIO-board level reconfigurable control system and NI LabVIEW system design software featuring the LabVIEW Robotics Module.

The competition winner will receive $3000 cash, with $1500 for the runner-up and a bonus $500 prize for the best robot design. All teams that successfully complete the competition tasks keep the development kit.

More information about the competition is available at www.australia.ni.com/ni-arc.