ITS Campus, ITS News – Successfully reaping achievements at the national level, the Robotics Team of Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) is preparing to fight at the international level. Namely in the Federation of International RoboSport Association (FIRA) RoboWorld Cup 2018 in Taiwan and the International Association of Broadcast Union (ABU) Robocon 2018 in Vietnam. The pride of ITS Robotics Team was officially sent off by ITS Chancellor Prof. Ir Joni Hermana MScES PhD onThursday (8/2).

For the fight in Taiwan, it will be represented by a soccer (humanoid) robot ‘Ichiro’, wheeled soccer robot ‘Iris’, and flying robot ‘Bayu Caraka.’ The three will compete in several categories including FIRA Huro Cup (Ichiro), FIRA Air (Bayu Caraka) and FIRA Roboshot (Iris). The match will take place on August 6th-11th at Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan.

While the robot team that will represent Indonesia to compete in ABU Robocon 2018 event is the River robot which previously won first prize in the 2018 Indonesian Robot Contest (KRI) in Yogyakarta, last June. The international match will take place on August 23rd-27th 2018 at Ninh Binh City, Vietnam.

Judging from its previous achievements, the chancellor advised students who will depart for the competition that the most important thing is to win against one’s self. “Achieving a champion is not an easy matter. But maintaining it is even more difficult,” the chancellor reminded.

In the same occasion, ITS Robotics team supervisor, Muhtadin ST MT, expressed optimistically that his team that has won the International RoboCup 2018 championship in Canada, the 2018 Indonesia Robot Contest, and the 2017 Indonesia Flying Robot Contest will do their best in Taiwan and Vietnam.

ITS Chancellor Prof. Joni Hermana witnesses robot Ichiro doing a marathon run

Muhtadin who is also a lecturer from the Department of Computer Engineering ITS explained that the robot care team had achieved some performance improvements. “In the humanoid robot category, besides excelling in the kicking range distance, Ichiro focuses updating the program to automatically detect the position of the ball,” said Muhtadin.

Putting two robots, one in kidsize and one in adultsize, Ichiro is confident to repeat the success from the past 2016 and 2017. Especially after obtaining the Indonesian Great Youth award from the Indonesian Ministry of Youth and Sports (Kemenpora), last June.

For the flying robot team, Bayu Caraka, Muhtadin commented that they focused on anticipating an indoor match arena. “The challenge that needs to be done is still the same as the previous year, which is carrying the cargo of the aircraft to a certain point, but this time it is not done outdoor,” explained Muhtadin again.

ITS Chancellor Prof. Joni Hermana witnesses Robot Ichiro lifting weights

To overcome this, the team decided to replace the sensing pattern that previously used the concept of Global Positioning System (GPS) to Image Processing concept in determining the landing location. As for the wheeled soccer robot Iris, which had played in the Indonesian Soccer Robot Contest (KRSBI) division last June, the team tried to anticipate the obstacles of a burning ball-carrying machine.

Following the three previous robot teams, for the first time the ITS ABU Robot team, River, will also go to Ninh Binh, Vietnam to take part in the ABU Robocon 2018 International event on Thursday (8/23).

This team that also represents Indonesia does not want to be left behind in improving their abilities again. Still with the same challenges, the River team managed to get the best time record of 22 seconds after previously winning with a 30 seconds time record at the national competition. “The ABU Robot Challenge lies in the control of two robots, which is manual robots and automatic robots,” said Muhtadin.

The manual robot is in charge to take the shuttlecock from a shelf and transfer it to the automatic robot. The automatic robot must then throw the shuttlecock through the ring on a pole twice at different distances. Then on the third throw, in addition to passing through the ring, the shuttlecock must also land on a circle-shaped target. “We hope that in this initial occasion, River’s achievements will not stop at the national level, but also continue to the world level,” he prayed. (ITS Public Relations Officer)

ITS Chancellor Prof. Joni Hermana (two from right) gave a lecture to the ITS Robotics team who are ready to compete in Taiwan and Vietnam