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Intelligent Systems Group
Department of Computer Science and Engineering P.O.Box 4500
FIN-90014 University of Oulu
Finland
Tel. +358-8-553 1011
Fax. +358-8-553 2612

ESA´s Lunar Robotics Challenge

The European Space Agency (ESA) has challenged university students to develop a robotic vehicle that is capable of working in a terrain comparable to the lunar poles. The Robotics Group of the University of Oulu is the only Nordic group that has been accepted to compete against seven other groups from different European Universities. The 8-day Lunar Robotics Challenge will be held in October 20-27, 2008 in Tenerife, Canary Islands.

The idea is to design a vehicle capable of retrieving soil samples from a crater, and an associated remote-operation workstation. The vehicle will be remotely operated by a workstation placed outside the crater with no direct visibility of the crater or rim.

The robot´s mission at the challenge includes:

• moving from a "landing site" to the rim of a lunar-like crater

• descending into the crater, which might incline up to 40 degrees

• operating in the sunlight on the crater rim and then in the dark interior of the crater

• reaching the bottom of the 15 m deep crater

• locating and retrieving at least 0,1 kg of soil samples from the bottom of the crater

• and finally, returning to the crater rim and then the "landing site".

The Robotics Group will participate in the challenge with the robot Mörri, which was recently built for M-Elrob 2008 competition.

Mörri is ready for going to lunar-like!

Modifications to the current set-up of Mörri include for example replacing the ordinary wheels with crawlers. Also, a mechanical grab will be needed for collection of the soil.

The team will maintain a blog during the preparation for the challenge.

During the competition, You can follow the contest from short videos, displayed daily in YouTube.

• Antti Tikanmäki