It was a remarkable achievement for Semar Proto UGM as the team was crowned winner of the Shell Eco-marathon Autonomous Programming Competition 2023, while Semar Urban UGM secured third place.
“We are very proud that Semar can win first and third place in this prestigious competition attended by strong teams in the world,” said the General Manager of Semar, Abdul Adzim Iftikar Mardiansjah.
Adzim said this year’s competition saw 25 teams from 15 countries competing to create control software for autonomous vehicles to achieve maximum efficiency.
Each team was challenged to build an autonomous car control algorithm, including perception to collect and process information from the environment, planning to determine and make decisions, and control of the vehicle to execute planned actions. The competition requires participants to use ROS (Robotic Operating System) as an environment to communicate with the car through the designed algorithm.
Mileage (km/kWh) is the primary assessment criterion for efficiency. The higher the mileage value, the more efficient the car control program is.
“The result for Semar Proto is 19.39 Km/kWH and Semar Urban 19.36 Km/kWh,” he said.
To test the efficiency, Adzim added, the committee ran the designed algorithm in a simulation on a server where other cars would appear randomly. The designed car program must be able to avoid collisions with these cars or other objects. The vehicle must also comply with traffic regulations, such as obeying traffic signs and not exceeding the speed limit.
Chief of Semar Electric Motor and Semar Proto, Hafiz Fatkha Ardian, expressed his delight at the achievement, the first time Semar Proto had won the world championship.
“Looking at the track record of previous competitions, we have never been among the winners. The fact that our team can become world champion this year is something we never imagined before,” Hafiz said.
Semar Proto’s victory at APC this year was a surprise. The team was ranked last in valid submissions two days before the competition closed. However, ultimately, they could turn things around by topping the world’s rank.
Hafiz further explained that this control program is a development of the program built by the previous team. The current Semar Proto team improved and improvised the prior year’s program.
“The program itself is not all from scratch. We focus more on improving the previous year’s program,” Hafiz explained.
Muhammad Bagus Hidayatullah, Chief of Semar Urban, also expressed his excitement over the third-place win, which gives the team pride for having built this program from start to finish diligently and consistently.
“This success is expected to motivate us at Semar to continue working and producing innovations that benefit many people. We hope that in the future, we can carry on the winning tradition in other international competitions,” he said.
Author: Ika
Photographer: Firsto