ABU DHABI // Blustery conditions made a tough robotics competition at Yas Island Marina circuit more demanding as teams battled for millions of dollars in prize money.
Unmanned aerial vehicles fought winds gusting at more than 30kph on the first day of the Mohammed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge, where 26 teams from 15 countries competed for US$5 million.
The challenges, which involved autonomous drones landing on moving vehicles and robots working in teams to lift heavy objects, were designed to simulate disaster and emergency response scenarios deemed too dangerous for humans.
“This competition encourages the best brains in robotics to come to the UAE and get robots to perform tasks which people cant do,” said Dr Arif Al Hammadi, Khalifa University’s executive vice president and vice chair of the competition’s steering committee.
“Robots that can save human lives will eventually exist and by performing these tasks they will also keep humans from having to put themselves in danger to save others.”
One of the competition’s predecessors, the Darpa Robotics Challenge held in the US, was held after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear meltdown highlighted the need for rescue robots.
Human first responders were forced back when they were exposed to dangerously high levels of radiation.
Having competed in a number of robotics challenges, including Darpa, Wesley Chan, the leader of Team JSK from the University of Tokyo, said the drones struggled in the wind.
“The weather can be challenging and it’s hard to deal with unpredictability of the wind,” he said.
“Sometimes the drones cannot even take off.”
The team from Germany also suffered difficulties because of the elements during their first time competing with drones.
“Usually we only have to worry about two dimensions but now we have to take a third into account,” said Patrick Wiesen, of the Mascor team from the University of Applied Sciences Aachen, Germany.
Mr Wiesen said the strong winds provided an extra degree of difficulty to the aerial challenges, particularly because the team’s drones could not pick up GPS in the arena.
“We tested our drones in the desert yesterday and they worked perfectly but for some reason they can’t find GPS here,” he said.
This was one of the many possible unexpected challenges which was part of the learning process, Mr Wiesen said.
Randa Almadhoun, 24, a team member of Shaheen – a collaboration between Khalifa University and the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre – said preparing the ground work for and participating in the contest had benefited the university greatly.
“After the competition we will have five robotic drones and a few ground vehicles that can be used by any students for further research and eventually be deployed for missions,” said the robotics lab researcher.
She said an endless possibility of glitches means the teams must always have a contingency plan.
“Our team ran out of time in the first challenge,” she said.
Dr Al Hammadi said he would like to see more local universities compete in the contest in the future.
“To be the best in the world you cannot compete at a national level but put yourself against the best in the world,” he said.
The winners will be announced on Saturday and the event is open to the public on Friday and Saturday.
tsubaihi@thenational.ae
