The competition is organised by the international technology group Bosch, which has produced a lot of home appliances that Estonians are familiar with. The scope of Bosch is however much wider – perhaps the best example here of their work, is their work on the Internet of Things, but actually Bosch is rather active with transport means and industry solutions. It is hoped, with the competition for students, established in 2013, to find stars of the future and new powerful ideas.

An Estonian team is participating for the first time in the competition: it was required to undergo a tough screening, in order to participate. The team of the University of Technology consists of Daniil Valme, Tõivo Nerep, Sten Aunpu and Fred-Georg Pääro. The mentor of the team is the professor of mechatronics Anton Rassõlkin.

The aim of the competition is to make the model of the car, in the ratio 1:10, to autonomously execute the prescribed tasks. The participants, for solving such an engineering problem, must send monthly to the organisers, a technical report supplemented with multimedia files, showing the progress of the team. The teams that pass the preliminary round, will meet in the middle of May next year, for the final competition, where the winner of the main award of 4 500 Euros will be determined.

The Bosch Future Mobility Challenge is an excellent opportunity for students to apply their knowledge and skills in practice, according to Professor Anton Rassõlkin and he is pleased to see the high motivation and interest in applying innovative solutions, shown by the team of the University of Technology. He hopes that the experience the team members obtain, will be of great assistance and support, for the development of future outstanding engineers. "These algorithms are based on machine vision and self training of systems that can be successfully used in smart transport, as well as elsewhere in industries: for example in quality control or all kinds of automation of processes, even for increasing the capacity of intersections through the use of traffic lights that detect congestion and traffic flow", added Professor Rassõlkin.

The competition last year was won by the team from the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, in Romania that had as their motto: "The best way to predict the future is to create it oneself.”

Comments by students

Tõivo Nerep: "I look foremost to the Bosch Future Mobility Challenge, as an opportunity to apply theoretical knowledge, but also as a means of discovering technology solutions that are still unknown to myself. I have no doubt that at the end of this journey that offers challenges, our collection of knowledge, skills and acquaintances will be larger than at the beginning.”

Fred-Georg Pääro: "The competition is an ideal opportunity to learn new knowledge, in a field that is becoming increasingly popular in our daily lives. Cars are precisely as smart as people can make them. We can now test ourselves in this field too."

Daniil Valme: "The new urban environment is currently born through the synergy of technical and IT skills. The BFMC21 is the right place to learn through activities, to apply technologies that a car of the future should use.’

Sten Erik Aunpu: "Technology is developing at an enormous speed. It is necessary, in order to be aware of its different fields, to acquire new theoretical knowledge and to apply them in practice. The Bosch Future Mobility Challenge gives us the opportunity to do both, in the field of autonomous vehicles, which are day by day becoming an increasingly more important part of the transport solution of the future."