Global Vessel Challenge Victory
IIT Madras Students Win International Autonomous Vessel Challenge in Norway
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Team Aritra, an ocean engineering student team from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, won the 2026 Njord Challenge, an international competition for autonomous surface vessels, in Trondheim, Norway. The team of Aarav Patel, S. Gurukesav and Madhava Sai finished ahead of 22 other teams from nine countries, scoring 90.42 points. Competitors were evaluated on autonomous docking, collision avoidance, manoeuvring, route-finding and their ability to adapt to an unexpected challenge under realistic maritime conditions. The students’ vessel earned full marks in route-finding and control tasks after months of testing, while overcoming magnetic interference and conflicts between its camera and GPS systems. The victory builds on IIT Madras’ earlier success in the competition and highlights the potential of marine autonomy for surveillance, environmental data collection, surveying and other operations requiring less continuous human presence.
Key Points
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Team Aritra won by a wide margin: it scored 90.42 points, compared with 79.90 for Türkiye’s MYS YAVUZ in second place and 79.63 for Poland’s AGH Solar Boat in third.
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The August 10–14 competition included 150 participants, and judging also covered technical inspection, reporting and presentation in addition to the vessel’s autonomous performance.
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Team Aritra’s win follows an earlier IIT Madras achievement in the same competition: a different group of students finished third globally and received the Sustainability Award in 2023.
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IIT Madras Director V. Kamakoti congratulated the students and urged them to continue developing their work so their expertise can benefit the country.
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Mentor Abhilash Sharma Somayajula said the Marine Autonomous Vessels Laboratory aims to build capabilities India will need as marine autonomy grows and to encourage students to pursue challenging marine-robotics ideas.
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