London, 21 June 2023.- The ERC 2023 has announced that they will feature 88 university teams from Canada, Japan, Great Britain, Switzerland, India, Poland, Italy, Turkey, and Mexico. Teams across five continents have joined the competition. 54 will participate in person for the world’s largest track mapping the surface of the Red Planet, and 34 will participate online in a remote formula. All teams are now beginning their journey to the finals of the competition. The first step will be submitting and evaluating the rovers’ technical documentation.
Applications from different locations mean that the European Rover Challenge is now the largest planetary robotics competition in the world. Eighty-eight teams from 22 countries have entered the competition, including 48 from Europe, 30 from Asia, 5 from North America, 3 from Africa, 2 from South America. The decision of the university teams from all over the world to compete in the ERC proves the high standard and leading position concerning other robotics events that were later created based on the European Space Foundation project.
This year ERC will implement a certification process provided by space industry professionals. Team members will be able to receive a formal document certifying their knowledge and experience.
ERC 2023 will be held at Kielce University of Technology on September 15-17. ERC visitors will also experience an inspiration zone filled with attractions for space, robotics, and science enthusiasts.
The competition will be conducted in two formulas: ON-SITE, in which robots constructed by the university teams compete on a specially designed Marsyard, and REMOTE, in which competitors from their universities will remotely control a robot physically moving around a track prepared by the competition organiser.
The list of qualified teams can be found here: https://roverchallenge.eu/en/teams-2023/.
