University students from around the world will compete in a full-scale lunar mission using custom-built semi-autonomous rovers as part of the University of Adelaide’s annual robotics competition, the Australian Rover Challenge (ARCh).
The competition will take place between March 27 – 30, 2025, at the Exterres Analogue Facility at the University’s Roseworthy campus. Nineteen teams from universities across Australia, Poland, India, and Kazakhstan will test their rovers in a series of rigorous space exploration challenges which will be evaluated by industry experts from Boeing, Caterpillar, ELO2, Turen, and the Australian Space Agency.
While other competitions around the globe focus on Martian exploration, ARCh is one of the only global rover challenges focused specifically on lunar exploration.
Associate Professor John Culton, co-founder of ARCh and Director of the Andy Thomas Centre for Space Resources, said the competition is an invaluable opportunity for students in building their careers in the Australian space industry.
“The Australian Rover Challenge pushes teams to solve complex engineering and robotics challenges that mirror real-world problems in lunar exploration,” he said. “It’s one of the most technically demanding student competitions in the world and provides hands-on experience that will be crucial for future careers, whether in space robotics, planetary science, or autonomous systems development.”
The rovers must tackle four key challenges: safely disembarking from a lander and accessing nearby equipment; moving and manipulating lunar material; identifying valuable resources hidden within Moon dust; and mapping the lunar terrain using only autonomous sensing and navigation.
For Jingyi Khoo Pek Eng Qiu, lead of the Adelaide rover team and a Bachelor of Computer Science student, ARCh has been a life-changing experience that introduced her to the space industry.
“This competition has been the highlight of my university journey,” she said. “Leading the design, build, and testing of a complex robotic system has given me invaluable hands-on experience that goes beyond the classroom.”
Teams for the 2025 Australian Rover Challenge are:
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Adelaide Rover Team from the University of Adelaide;
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Monash Nova Rover from Monash University;
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UniMelb Rover Team from the University of Melbourne;
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RMIT Rover Team from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology;
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Swinburne Rover Team from the Swinburne University of Technology;
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QUT Remote Off-World Autonomous Robotics (R.O.A.R.) from the Queensland University of Technology;
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UQ Space from the University of Queensland;
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UOW Rover Team from the University of Wollongong;
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UWA Rover Team from the University of Western Australia;
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Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS) Team from the University of New South Wales Canberra;
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Bluesat from the University of New South Wales;
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Deakin Rover Team from Deakin University;
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UTS Rock-E THE ROVER from the University of Technology;
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Macquarie Aerospace Rover Society (MARS) from Macquarie University;
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Aspan Rover from Nazarbayev University (Kazakhstan);
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AGH Space Systems from AGH University of Krakow (Poland);
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Legendary Rover Team Rzeszów from the University of Technology (Poland);
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Projekt Scorpio from the Wrocław University of Science and Technology (Poland); and
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Rhino Rovers (Demonstration team) from the Dayananda Sagar Academy of Technology and Management (India).
Australian Rover Challenge partners include Caterpillar, Boeing, ELO2, iSpace, Australian Space Agency, South Australian Space Industry Centre, CSIRO and Mini Mammoth Games.
