ROVENSO awarded by IAEA

ROVENSO has just scored an important award at the IAEA Robotics Challenge in Brisbane. The robotics startup with offices at the EPFL Innovation Park has won the 2^nd Prize in the UGV – Unmanned Ground Vehicle Category where It was competing with finalists from all around the globe.

Some of the most common tasks undertaken by the IAEA inspectors involve making repetitive measurements in areas that can be difficult to access, or with elevated radiation levels. This is a domain where robotic could play a role, not only to improve the working conditions of the inspectors but also to enhance the consistency of the IAEA measurements.

Inspectors conduct a routine task that includes counting containers, recording their ID tags and performing gamma measurements on some of them. With this challenge, the IAEA wanted to identify small unmanned vehicles / robotized rolling platforms able to assist the inspectors by performing the following tasks: moving autonomously across a storage area, counting items of a specific geometry, recording their ID tags, and carrying specific IAEA instrument payloads for measurement campaigns.

"Automating these scenarios of is perfectly aligned with the mission of ROVENSO" explains Thomas Estier, CEO of the company. "We make agile robots to keep workers out of harms way in challenging terrains and harsh environments, so we are really excited to show how ROVéo performs in these scenarii, discover the best strategies from other teams and compare the different hardware solutions.” 

Understandably, this award in Australia is very important for the Swiss agile rover maker. Scoring at the highest level at this year’s Robotics Challenge is a first positive step, paving the way for a possible future collaboration with the International Atomic Energy Agency. But a lot remains to be done in the next months for ROVENSO, says Thomas Estier.

(ES)