PUCP to be the first Peruvian university to participate in the Maritime RobotX Challenge 2022

Ten PUCP students and graduates are living the countdown to the maximum, finalizing the details to be part of the Maritime RobotX Challenge 2022. They qualified for this international university-level competition for the development of autonomous vehicles in the marine environment, which will take place in Sydney, Australia, in November 2022.

This is the first time that a Peruvian delegation will be present in this competition. Together with Chile, they are the only two Latin American countries that will have the opportunity to face different projects from countries that are world powers in robotics.

Call and application to the RobotX Challenge

Francisco Cuellar, professor of the Mechatronics Engineering Section and of the Master's Degree in Control and Automation Engineering PUCP, summoned undergraduate and graduate students specialized in the research, design and development of robots to form the team of 10 young people who make up the Tumi Team. This team, made up of graduates and students from different careers of our Faculty of Science and Engineering, is preparing to represent the country in the Maritime RobotX Challenge 2022 from November 11 to 17.

"We had to put together a proposal, propose how we would make this structure work by implementing electronics, motors and batteries to turn it into an autonomous vehicle that can compete. We already had a project underway, we reinforced it and they donated us the vessel, which is a piece of equipment valued at US$ 35 thousand and which will stay at the University to continue with the research. In addition, we partnered with the TumiRobotics startup, which has provided us with motors, sensors and other equipment valued at another US$ 30 thousand", says Professor Francisco Cuellar.

Tumi Team Team Tumi Team

- Manuel Escobar (Master in Digital Image and Signal Processing): Team Leader

- Mario Balcázar (Master in Control and Automation Engineering): Drone Pilot

- Miguel Vargas (Master in Mechanical Engineering): Mechanical Design

- Jaime del Alcázar (Mechatronics Engineering): Web Developer

- Martín Leiva (Master in Control and Automation Engineering): Navigation

- Juan Pimentel (Mechatronics Engineering student): Computer Vision

- Bruno Molina (Mechatronics Engineering student): Mechanical Design

- Víctor Sevillano (Mechatronics Engineering student): Programming

- Fernando Paz (Mechatronics Engineering student): Programming

- Víctor Huayapa (Mechatronics Engineering student): Electronic Design

The Tumi Team and its Wave Adaptive Modular Vessel

Manuel Escobar leads the Tumi Team. He is a graduate of PUCP Mechatronics Engineering and of our Master's Degree in Digital Signal and Image Processing. Like each of the young people who took on this challenge, he has put all his efforts to leave the name of the University and Peru on high.

"We want to represent our university and make it proud, so we will do our best to come in first place. At the same time, we hope to form a network of contacts with the representatives of different universities around the world that participate and exchange information to work together on future projects," says Escobar.

Since last year, they have been working hard on fitting out the Wave Adaptive Modular Vessel (WAM-V) with the necessary equipment to perform robotics tasks, simulating the maritime system and testing the elements to process sensor data. They tested all these systems in real time in different parts of the country: Pucusana (Lima), Huaraz (Ancash), Langui (Cusco) and Paracas (Ica).

Its creation meets four of the UN's sustainable development goals: developing technology for the care and sustainability of the marine ecosystem, developing risk management and early warning solutions for health, enhancing the technological capacity of industrial sectors by fostering research and innovation, and promoting quality ICT education for young engineers.

"The development of this project allows me to apply everything I have learned throughout my degree and the master's degree I am pursuing. It allows me to work with images and give the robot the ability to perform certain tasks, such as identifying and tracking an object. It allows us all to be able to integrate our careers and do something much more interesting," adds the Tumi Team leader.

Join the project

The Australian government and the U.S. Office of Naval Research donated the platform for the robot competition to emerging countries like ours. For its part, the PUCP has covered six of the ten airline tickets and still needs to pay for travel expenses, lodging, team logistics and other expenses generated by their stay in Australia. For this reason, the Tumi Teams is looking for more organizations to support their participation in the Maritime RobotX Challenge 2022. Both the private and public sector could join this team to help them make this dream come true and thus contribute to the protection of our marine environment and the development of research in this field.

Contribution to the development of robotics in the country

"This competition will allow participants to learn what is being developed out there and what challenges are involved. Although it is a university competition, the long-term goal is to train people at the highest level to develop autonomous vehicles for maritime environments. There are already autonomous vessels that do environmental monitoring for mining companies that have operations in the bay; there are also electric vessels that monitor the fishing biomass and prevent large vessels from moving around the sea using diesel. We need to train this type of professionals to implement these and other solutions in the not so distant future," says Francisco Cuellar.

Now, the professor adds, they are working on a project to use an electric and autonomous boat to inspect the sea and remove hydrocarbons from it. An automated robot that would have been of great help in the oil spill that occurred earlier this year in the Peruvian sea.