Ministry of Education and Science reports that the AGH Space Systems team from the AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków has won the European Rover Challenge 2023 Mars rover competition and thus defended the championship title won at last year’s competition. Fourth place was taken by the Warsaw team SKA Robotics with its Sirius II rover.

The AGH Space Systems team proved to be the best team in the finals of the European Rover Challenge 2023 competition, which was held in Kielce. A total of 53 teams representing 12 different countries took part in the competition.

The organisers also awarded distinctions in the categories: Navigation, Maintenance, Science, Collection & Probing and Presentation. An honourable award in the Navigation category, a mission testing the rover’s ability to move autonomously through a designated area, was received by the AGH Space Systems team. During this mission the Kalman rover reached all four locations set by the judges and returned to the starting point in the required time without interference from the operators during the drive.

“This is the result of many months of hard work by our team, many hours spent in the lab, many lost screws and many lines of code written. It is an incredible feeling to stand on the top of the podium for the second year in a row. That’s why winning the title just over a month after the end of the previous, also victorious competition at the Canadian International Rover Challenge 2023 makes us especially happy”, emphasise the young engineers.

This is not the only success of this year’s AGH Space Systems team. In addition to winning the European Rover Challenge 2023, the Kraków team also won 1st place at the International Rover Challenge 2023 (India), 8th place at the University Rover Challenge (USA) and 1st place at the Canadian International Rover Challenge 2023.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński