KOCHI: The IEEE student branch of College of Engineering (CE) Adoor, Pathanmathitta, is basking in the honour of becoming the ambassador organisation from India for the Fifth International Minesweeper Competition to be held at Zewail City for Science and Technology in Egypt from October 27-30. The competition is organized under the auspices of IEEE Robotics & Automation Society – Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technology (RAS–SIGHT).
The college has to give awareness and publicity about minesweepers in India and make teams to participate from India. The college students are joined by software developer Lentin Joseph from Ernakulam who has developed a software/robotics operating system (ROS) that could be used with other compatible robots through Humanitarian Robotics and Automation Technology Challenge (HRATC) at the minesweeper competition.
Landmines kill more than 5,000 people annually, of which, 46% are children. It is estimated that 110 million active mines are scattered in 62 countries. “This competition aims at raising public awareness of the seriousness of landmines and unexploded ordnances (UXOs) contamination and fostering robotics research and applications in the area of humanitarian demining in the world,” says Ajas S Nazarudeen, chairman of the IEEE student branch of the college,
In this competition, each participating team constructs a teleoperated/autonomous unmanned ground/aerial vehicle that must be able to search for buried and surface-laid anti-personnel landmines and UXOs. The position and the type of each detected object are visualized and overlaid on the minefield map. The robot must be able to navigate through rough terrain that mimics a real minefield.
There are five categories in the competition - Juniors for elementary and high school students, Minesweepers–Academia: for undergraduate and postgraduate students, Minesweepers–Industry and Special Category-I and II. The competition also motivates the participants to create new companies and industries geared towards minefield reconnaissance and mapping technologies.
