Team Anveshak (IIT Madras)

Team Anveshak has one scored URC finals: 30^th of 31 in 2023, with 3 points in Delivery, zero in Equipment Servicing and zero in Autonomy. Since then it has finished second at the Indian Rover Challenge, fourth at IROC, sixth at the Anatolian Rover Challenge and first at the Caterpillar Autonomy Challenge. The URC record and the team’s competitive life have separated, and the 2017 generation is better documented than the modern one.

Identity and results

Team Anveshak is based at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and works through the Centre for Innovation. It appears on the URC team lists in 2022 and 2023 only, although the team’s first URC appearance was 2017 S-URC22-TEAMS S-URC23-TEAMS S-ANVESHAK-2017-BROCHURE. Tier C is the census label for a single scored finals; the tier rule is defined on the census page.

In 2022 the team scored 84.22 on the SAR and did not record a finals result, so the sheet carries no mission scores and no rank S-URC22-SCORES. The first URC appearance was 2017, 29^th overall and third among Indian teams S-ANVESHAK-2017-BROCHURE.

Rover generations

Aurora (2017). The name comes from the 2017 sponsorship brochure and is carried by the aurora2017, aurora2018 and aurora2019 repositories S-ANVESHAK-2017-BROCHURE S-ANVESHAK-GH. The chassis combined a rocker-bogie suspension with an articulation joint, designed and analysed in Autodesk Fusion 360 S-ANVESHAK-2017-BROCHURE.

The 2023 finals rover. No name is published, and whether it was the 2017 rocker-bogie platform or a newer chassis is not stated.

The 2024 ARC rover. A separate machine with “four steerable wheels” and “a manipulator with custom made cycloidal gearbox” S-ANVESHAK-SITE. The two descriptions are seven years apart and cannot both describe one chassis; they are best read as different generations.

Subsystems

Mobility. The 2017 rover used a rocker-bogie suspension with an articulation joint, built for rough terrain and stated to be capable of encountering “harsh drops” S-ANVESHAK-2017-BROCHURE. The 2024 ARC rover used four steerable wheels S-ANVESHAK-SITE. Wheel diameter, mass, motors and top speed are not published.

Arm and end-effectors. The 2017 arm mixed rotary and linear actuators, with a modular end that accepts either a gripper or a digger depending on the task S-ANVESHAK-2017-BROCHURE. The 2024 ARC rover used a manipulator with a custom cycloidal gearbox S-ANVESHAK-SITE. Degrees of freedom, reach and payload are not published.

Science. The 2017 digger extracted, collected and tested soil on board, and stored the sample for later analysis; no instrument is named S-ANVESHAK-2017-BROCHURE. The 2023 science score of 40.02 is the only URC science data point S-URC23-SCORES.

Autonomy. In 2017 the team fused GPS, IMU and LiDAR data for navigation, with computer vision and machine learning described as under exploration S-ANVESHAK-2017-BROCHURE. The 2023 URC autonomy score was zero, and the team won the autonomous-mission category at IRC 2024 S-URC23-SCORES S-ANVESHAK-SITE.

Communications and power. In 2017 the rover used long-range wireless routers and high-gain antennas, with non-line-of-sight low-latency video named as the challenge; a custom battery-management board reported battery level, and the controller boards were custom printed S-ANVESHAK-2017-BROCHURE. Frequencies, capacities and voltages are not published.

Software. Fourteen public repositories, none updated after 30 March 2024, trace the lineage from aurora2017 through caesar2020 and darkknight2021 to autonav_sim and Design-Archival S-ANVESHAK-GH.

Mission performance

2017, 29^th overall and third among Indian teams. The first URC; the brochure says the team started in November 2015 and reached the finals in a short time frame S-ANVESHAK-2017-BROCHURE.

2022, SAR 84.22 and no finals result. The team qualified on the written review and recorded nothing on the field S-URC22-SCORES.

2023, 30^th of 31 with 129.13. Science 40.02 was the only meaningful score; delivery 3, equipment 0 and autonomy 0 S-URC23-SCORES. The rover drove and did some science, and the missions that need a tested manipulator and a tested navigation stack produced nothing.

2024–2026, absent from the URC. No team-list entry and no score-sheet row in any of the three years S-URC24-TEAMS S-URC25-TEAMS S-URC26-TEAMS. The team finished second at IRC 2024 with the autonomous-mission title, fourth at IROC 2024, sixth at ARC 2024 and first at CAC 2025 S-ANVESHAK-SITE.

Lessons for a first build

• One arm, swappable end effectors. A gripper for servicing and a digger for science can share one arm, which is what the 2017 brochure describes S-ANVESHAK-2017-BROCHURE. The saving is a whole manipulator.
• Announced capability is not scored capability. GPS, IMU and LiDAR autonomy was described in 2017, and the URC autonomy score in 2023 was zero. The team later won an autonomous mission elsewhere; the capability arrived, but it did not arrive at the URC.
• URC rank is not engineering capability. Four strong results at other competitions in the same window as a three-season URC absence make this the clearest example in the group.
• Publish a design archive. Design-Archival is the single most useful public artefact for successors, and a first build can create one in its first season.
• Record why a competition is dropped. No source states why the URC stopped after 2023, which makes the team’s trajectory unreadable to outsiders.

What remains uncertain

Why the team stopped entering the URC after 2023, while the Indian Rover Challenge, IROC, the Anatolian Rover Challenge and the Caterpillar Autonomy Challenge continued, is not stated. Whether the 2023 rover was the 2017 rocker-bogie platform or the four-wheel steered design reported for ARC 2024 is not published. The design archive is public as a repository listing, but its contents were not examined. Mass, dimensions, motors, battery, radio and on-board computer are all unpublished. Whether the team intends to return to the URC is not stated; the site lists the URC among the competitions it enters.

Team sources

• teamanveshakiitm.com, the team site with the achievements panel.
• 2017 sponsorship brochure, the only multi-page technical document the team publishes.
• team-anveshak on GitHub, fourteen public repositories including the design archive.