ISRO Robotics Challenge — IRoC-U 2024 · Case Study

GURUtva

Let’s Build a Space Robot

Our first IRoC-U journey began with a lunar-inspired rover built to navigate challenging terrain, understand its surroundings and perform robotic sample-handling tasks.

Lunar Rover Autonomous Navigation Robotic Manipulation

Read the story Official results ↗

Event: IRoC-U 2024
Project: GURUtva — Lunar Rover
Institute: YCCE Nagpur
Result: 1st Prize · National

01 The Challenge

Build a robot for a world that doesn’t behave like Earth.

IRoC-U 2024 asked student teams to design and realise a wheeled or legged rover for an extraterrestrial-inspired arena. The challenge combined complete hardware and software development with tasks based on real space-robotics problems.

The Environment

Moon-like terrain with obstacles and difficult surfaces, not a predictable laboratory floor.

The Mission

Combine mobility, perception and manipulation so exploration is more than driving from A to B.

The Tasks

Real space-robotics problems, from navigating the arena to handling samples.

02 Our Perspective

We saw the rover as a complete explorer, not just a vehicle.

The engineering challenge was connecting mobility, sensing, autonomous decision-making and robotic manipulation into one dependable system.

GURUtva · Concept View

03 Our Solution

One rover. Multiple capabilities.

GURUtva brought together terrain mobility, environmental perception, autonomous navigation, robotic manipulation and mission control. Here we share the public-facing architecture rather than internal implementation details.

Traverse

An all-terrain mobility system built around controlled travel and turning on challenging, lunar-like surfaces.

Understand

Depth and visual information helped the rover recognise obstacles and the terrain around it.

Navigate

Navigation and onboard processing combined to support movement through unfamiliar terrain.

Interact

A robotic arm extended the rover from a mobility platform into a task-performing explorer.

Handle samples

The mission concept included collecting samples and placing them securely for the next stage.

Operate as one

Hardware and software were developed together so the rover worked as one coordinated system.

04 The Journey

From a proposal on paper to the national field round.

The 2024 journey moved through proposal, design, hardware demonstrations, live evaluation and the final field challenge in Bengaluru.

01
Proposal
Concept and solution direction.
02
Quals-1
Hardware & rover demonstrations.
03
Quals-2
Live video demonstration.
04
Field Round
Final arena in Bengaluru.
05
National Stage
Winners announced on 23 Aug.

05 What Made GURUtva Different

The rover was designed around the mission.

Rather than treating each capability as an isolated feature, the concept connected mobility, perception and manipulation into a single exploration platform.

Autonomy

Explore with less manual driving

GURUtva highlights autonomous navigation and the ability to traverse moon-like terrain with precision and reliability.

Manipulation

Turn movement into meaningful action

The robotic arm supported sample collection and secure placement, giving the rover a role beyond transportation.

06 What We Learned

A space robot is never just a robot.

GURUtva became a multidisciplinary engineering exercise where every discipline had to converge into one machine.

Mechanical designElectronicsSoftwarePerceptionControlTeamwork

07 The Result

AIR 01

National Winner

Team Titans secured the 1st Prize with the cash prize of 10,00,000 /- in the IRoC-U 2024 final field round with GURUtva.

IRoC-U 2024ISRO Robotics Challenge — University Edition

1st PrizeFinal field round · Bengaluru

23 Aug 2024National Space Day award ceremony

View official results ↗ Watch the announcement ↗

08 The Team

Meet the Titans

Guided by our mentors — Dr. Sandip Khedkar & Mr. Niket Malusare — and built by the 2024 squad of innovators, engineers and problem solvers who brought GURUtva to life.