Mobile robot competition. Underground mining: A challenging application in mobile robotics

Abstract

This paper presents the history, current position and future aspirations of the mobile robot competition. It has been run for a number of years in the past under the guidance of National Instruments as an undergraduate competition for National Instruments based software and hardware. By 2011 it has expanded to include all levels of academia, is no longer limited in the hardware or software architecture or supplier, and also includes postgraduate students. There has also been an interest from hobbyists and industry to participate and the 4th Robotics and Mechatronics Conference of South Africa has agreed to play host to the competition. As underground mining is such an important research field for robotics in South Africa, the competition has taken on an underground mining theme, and is being coordinated by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’s Center for Mining Innovation. As such, all the Tasks are indicative of a Task that an underground mining robot could feasibly execute. The competition aspires to grow in subsequent years in size and complexity as the universities and their teams grow in capability. In this way, the human capital moving into mining robotics will grow in number and capability, so supplying an expanding market.