Grupo SENERThe team from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, winner of the final of the competition for robotics applied to autonomous vehicles of the Sener Foundation
The Sener Foundation has held the final of the robotics competition applied to autonomous vehicles, ‘Sener’s Bot Talent’, at its headquarters in Tres Cantos, Madrid. The ‘Rovernetas’ team from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) has won the Overall Prize, worth €1,200, as well as the Technology Prize, valued at €1,000.
The competition brought together final-year and master’s students from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, the European University of Madrid (UEM), the Carlos III University of Madrid (UC3M) and the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM). The teams designed, assembled and programmed an autonomous terrestrial rover, starting from a set of parts provided by Sener and based on a NASA design. Since the beginning of the year, the teams worked on their projects, which were evaluated in the final held on July 8.
During the tests, the teams demonstrated their skills in guiding, navigating and controlling an autonomous vehicle in a real environment, facing challenges such as environmental perception, actuator control and trajectory planning. These tests included specific tasks such as precision in movement, object identification using image processing, localization with a Kalman filter and route planning.
The UEM ‘Talos’ team won the Design Award, worth €800, for the cleanliness and neatness of the assembly of their rover. The jury, made up of Sener professionals and members of the Spanish Committee for Automation, evaluated each aspect of the teams’ performance.
Rosana Madroñal, director of the Sener Foundation, highlighted that the competition has not only provided an enriching experience for the students, but also underlines the importance of robotics and autonomous navigation in the industry, contributing to the training of future generations of engineers.
