The University of Warsaw’s team Nomagic Warsaw MIMotaurs has qualified with four other teams to the finals of a prestigious robotics competition “The Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge”. The finals will be held in 2024 in the capital of the United Arab Emirates – Abu Dhabi.
The Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC) is one of the world’s greatest international robotics competitions. Every two years representatives of the most respected universities and international research institutes meet in Abu Dhabi. During the competition they are building autonomous flying and ground vehicles that are designed to perform specific tasks set by the jury.
In the ongoing edition of the competition, each team qualified for the finals must design, build and program a system consisting of 20 unmanned flying vehicles (drones), which are not only able to work together, but also with a surface vessel.
The role of the system is to search a designated water area to find predetermined vessels and to pick up and transport various types of objects ashore from them. It must operate autonomously without human interference. Due to the lack of access to communications and satellite navigation this task becomes more complicated.
At the turn of February and March, the MIMotaurs team succeeded in the first stage of the competition and entered the semi-finals. The judges appreciated the convincing vision and thorough presentation of the concept for the realisation of the task. The semi-finals lasted for most of 2022 and culminated in an October visit to Warsaw by the organisers, during which we presented prototypes of elements of the final product.
Another positive verdict of the jury enabled the team to qualify to the finals in Abu Dhabi. There they will compete with other teams, such as: Fly Eagles (China and UAE), ROC (Denmark and Sweden), Team Kaist (South Korea) and UNIZG-FER (Croatia).
The MIMotaurs have a year to build the designed system and check its effectiveness under real conditions. In February 2024 they will present the system in Abu Dhabi by performing the final task on a designated sea area. The best idea will be rewarded with a prize of USD 2 mln.
The Nomagic Warsaw MIMotaurs was founded in 2019 at the UW Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Mechanics, and focuses on competing with the best scientists from around the world in the toughest robotic challenges. The team gathers talented UW students, doctoral candidates, graduates and employees from various faculties. The team is led by Karol Pieniący, a doctoral candidate in exact and natural sciences, and an IDEAS NCBR research team member, and Michał Niedziółka, a student at the Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Mechanics, University of Warsaw. Jan Dziedzic, a student at the Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw, is in charge of the drone fleet management.
The team members are as follows: Kacper Oreszczuk, Michał Wiatrowski, Jan Wawszczak, Marek Wesołowski, Mikołaj Pacek, Jakub Klimek, Krzysztof Ciebiera, Jakub Organa, Michał Szczęśniak, Mateusz Banaszek, Błażej Wilkoławski, Piotr Krzywicki, Maja Kalinowska, Szymon Sadkowski, Kajetan Husiatyński, Krzysztof Ołdakowski, Marcin Kurowski and Anna Kalisz. The team is mentored by Prof. Marek Cygan, the world champion in the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest, a distinguished researcher and a co-founder of a robotics startup nomagic.ai.
More information about the MIMoutaurs is available on the team’s website >>