Samsun, Türkiye: A group of students from the Institute of Space Technology won 1st place while representing Pakistan in Turkey’s largest technological festival named TEKNOFEST 2022. The students participated in the Black Sea Competition (held in Samsun) and the International Free Mission UAV category (held in Kütahya) and competed with more than 96 teams internationally.
The students from IST formed a team, named AIRoSE (AI-based Robotic Systems Engineering) which had developed a swarm of UAVs (2 quadcopters and 1 hexacopter) to help in search and rescue missions in remote areas and presented their project in front of judges. These students also won the ‘Incentive Award’ for their demonstration of this project.
“Our project was a biomimicry of ant behavior on UAVs. When ants hunt for food, they deposit a chemical trail known as pheromone which can be sensed by other ants. This encourages attraction towards the trail to food, which is why you observe long lines of ants towards a food source” Rehmoz said in a statement. “We implemented this process by doing the opposite: the UAVs deposit pheromone to discourage search of areas they are searching, i.e., the search is more distributed, which is what you’d expect to see in search missions. Expansion of search parties lead to more area coverage, which is the basis for this algorithm.”
The team won medals, a shield and a cash prize awarded by the Turkish Government. “Aerospace is a relatively secluded field in Pakistan. We participated in this event to show that Pakistan is no less than any other country when it comes to talent.” said Asad while talking to Scientia Pakistan.
“Unfortunately, only 3 out of 8 members of our team made it here due to lack of financial support,
but we are glad that we proved our mettle here. We will continue to further such endeavors in the
future.”
The overall student team was composed of: Asad Mahmood, Ahmed Hassan, Rehmoz Ayub, Abdullah Afzal, Dilawaiz Saghir, Faryal Batool, Roohan Ahmed and Nauman Rauf.
Also, read: Navigating the aerospace industry with Anique Ajmal Siddiqui
Saadeqa Khan is the founder, CEO, & Editor-in-Chief of Scientia Pakistan. She’s a member of the Oxford Climate Journalism Network (Second Cohort) and NASW. Saadeqa is a fellow of NPF Washington, The Falling Walls Foundation, and the Science Journalism Forum. Saadeqa has won several international journalism grants and awards for her reports.
