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The challenge for RoboManipal Lunabotics at the competition next year is to develop a robot which can mine for regolith or lunar soil material
A group of students from Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT) whooped with joy when they heard they were selected for the fourth International NASA Lunabotics Mining Competition 2013 to be held at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida from May 20-24 next year. They are one of the five teams selected from India.

 
Aditya Kamath, project head of RoboManipal Lunabotics – a division of MIT’s RoboManipal team – and third year engineering student, told Bangalore Mirror that getting to know of the selection last month has been the most exciting moment so far.
 
“While waiting for the results, I was so tense that I sat down to edit the code in our team room. In one corner, interviews for recruiting members to the Lunabotics team was taking place. And bang in the middle of the coding, I received an email that changed everything. NASA had given us the green signal. It was so exhilarating that I just shouted out ‘Approved’ and jumped up. So did the others. The interviewee was shocked! And while jumping, I had managed to close the code window without saving. It was one socially awkward and disastrous moment, but it still felt brilliant,” he said.
 
 
The challenge
The competition, which will see 50 global teams taking part, involves developing an autonomous or telerobotically-controlled robot that can mine for regolith (lunar soil material) from a simulated lunar surface with craters and rocks. The hurdle here is the fineness of the sand, finer than even fly-ash, which makes movement difficult. Another important feature of this competition is that the robot needs to be controlled over WiFi from a mission control room about 500 metres away from the lunar arena.
 
Kamath said: “This is our first attempt at the competition. Our electronic design and code has been completed. Our mechanical design has been completed and is being verified by our faculty advisers and professionals from the mechanical design industry. The logistics for the mechanical design has been completed and manufacturing has begun.”
 
The robot is modular in structure. Systems can be removed and added easily. “We plan to design control systems for this robot that allow fast control and manoeuvrability in the long run. This robot can be modified for military use and we plan to implement systems for the same,” said Aditya.
 
Other core members of the team include students Apoorve Rastogi, Abhijeet Khanna, Akash Swamy, Shashank Sarbada and Kalpit Mehta. The team has also received technical support from National Instruments India.