The ITS Banyubramanta team won the Special Award for the Open Category at the First Batu Underwater Robot Challenge in Batu

ITS Campus, ITS News – A proud achievement was once again achieved by students of the Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) in the field of robotics. This achievement was achieved by the Banyubramanta team under the Robotics Student Activity Unit (UKM) that won Special Award in Open category in the First Batu Underwater Robot Challenge in Batu, which ended Sunday (13/10).

The Banyubramanta team is one of ITS robotic teams engaged in underwater robots and amphibious robots. The team has a mission to create a robot technology that can be useful in exploring and maintaining the natural wealth of Indonesia’s underwater in the future. “So if the Barunastra team is great on the water surface, hopefully, the Banyubramanta team will be great under the water,” said Reza Maliki Akbar as General Manager of the Banyubramanta team.

The Banyubramanta team has carved several achievements in the field of underwater robotics even though they were recently born in 2018. One of the achievements is the First Batu Underwater Challenge competition which was included in the series of Batu Robotics Week events. “So this second event that we took part in after previously succeeded got the top ten at another event which is 2019 Technogine by Telkom University,” explained the young man who is often called Maliki.

The event is a collaboration of the Batu City Government, Wonderful Indonesia Robot Challenge, and East Java Park. The Banyubramanta team sent two ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) robots for the event. The robot carried a mission to bring an object in the form of a nut bolt likened as cargo from one point to another in the L-shaped arena. The ROV Robot used was controlled using a wireless remote control with a 2.4 GHz frequency by the navigator.

According to Maliki, the challenge in this race was the intersection where the nut bolt was to be taken and moved to the next position. Besides, there was also a challenge of passing the bump obstacle in the form of a lane that is set to reduce its height at the start and the end after the ROV carries the nut bolt load.

Reza Maliki Akbar as the ROV navigator to control the underwater robot of Banyubramanta team during the race

Maliki said that the Special Award achieved was derived from the ROV design made by the team itself. The team considered the selection of engines and other supporting equipment. Even one of the ROVs sent has a very large design but it moves stable under the water. “From the design, the jury was impressed with our ROV and gave the award,” he said.

Maliki also explained that there were some obstacles experienced in preparing the team to participate in the event. One of them was the frequent replacement of DC motors used for robots because it was considered inadequate. Moreover, the ROVs prepared were also often carried out trial and error in adding robot loads. “This part takes too long, but finally we managed to make our robot stable,” he explained.

He hopes that this award can motivate the Banyubramanta team to achieve even more in the future. He also hoped that later they would get more support from many parties to develop the team. “In the future, we target to be able to participate in both international and national robot events,” he concluded. (sep/gayatri/ITS Public Relation)

The underwater robot of Banyubramanta team at the First Batu Underwater Robot Challenge competition