Team Icarus from IIIT-Dharwad secured fourth place in the ISRO Robotics Challenge–URSC 2026, winning ₹2 lakh. The students built an autonomous heavy-payload quadcopter for Mars-like environments. Prof. Prasanna said, "The achievement reflected the students’ technical expertise, perseverance, teamwork and innovation." The results were announced during recent National Space Day celebrations.
Team Icarus of the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Dharwad, has secured fourth place in the ISRO Robotics Challenge–URSC (IRoC-U) 2026 and won a cash prize of ₹2 lakh.
The team comprised Jayesh Patil, Saksham Gupta, Aswin Joseph, Priyanshu Mittal, Raskin Verma, Ankit Dash and Mohammad Rehan.
The team developed an autonomous heavy-payload quadcopter designed to operate in a simulated Mars-like environment without GPS connectivity. The drone could navigate autonomously, identify designated targets, execute mission operations and return to its base without human intervention.
Prof. Kande, who guided the team through the development and preparation phases, said that the system incorporated visual-inertial navigation, optical-flow-based navigation and computer vision for target detection. The students undertook extensive testing and debugging to integrate the hardware and software required for autonomous operations, he said.
The results were announced during the National Space Day celebrations and awards ceremony in Ahmedabad, organised with the involvement of the ISRO’s Space Applications Centre recently.
Prof. Prasanna said the achievement reflected the students’ technical expertise, perseverance, teamwork and innovation. It also demonstrated IIIT Dharwad students’ capabilities in autonomous robotics, aerial systems and technologies relevant to future space exploration, he said.
Professor K. Gopinath, in charge of student welfare, Registrar Satish Annigeri and the student achievers were present.