An autonomous, lightweight robot created by Cornell students for detecting land mines placed third out of 53 student teams in the design portion of the Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC), held in Michigan June 5-8.

The robot, Nero, was the latest model conceived and built by the Cornell MineSweeper Team, comprising more than 30 engineering students from several disciplines. Founded in 2006, the relatively young team, which had never competed before, plans to continue entering competitions, but its purpose is ultimately humanitarian.

"The chief purpose of our project is definitely to save lives," said Cam Salzberger '11, co-leader of the team for 2009-10. "Our robot will make the act of mine sweeping far safer and, therefore, faster."

The goal: To make a device reliable enough to assist civilian operations with clearing fields of explosives that, when stepped on, can maim or kill. Used in warfare to secure borders or restrict enemy movement, anti-personnel land mines have been banned by 156 countries so far, according to the International Campaign to Ban Land mines -- and the U.S. is not one of them. Their use continues to be a humanitarian issue around the world.

"We can help the people of affected countries by raising awareness, removing land mines and helping the victims," said Barrett Ames '12, team co-leader. "The robot is just one piece of this puzzle."

The team, honored with the Albert R. George Student Team Award from the Cornell Engineering Alumni Association in 2008, only entered the design portion of the competition, which also included categories for navigation and autonomy. Nero received high marks for such components as its drive train and the software that controls it. The judges also ruled on the engineering process the students described in their reports and work assignments.

"IGVC was a competition to benchmark competency for the team and also the basics of how robotics should be done," said founding member Hamzah Sikander, M.Eng. '09.

Nero is the successor to the team's first robot, Gladiator, which suffered from faulty engineering and generally didn't work, Sikander said. Learning from their mistakes, the students built Nero using a more systems-based approach, integrating electrical, mechanical and computer components from the start, Sikander said.

In the upcoming year, the team will likely re-enter Nero in the IGVC competition with a new, more stable chassis, according to Salzberger.

The team will also work on an entirely new robot specific to mine detection and will likely shift to a remote-controlled platform, as opposed to an autonomous one.

"The goal is to test the robot in facilities specific to this purpose by [next] summer and actually test the robot in affected countries in the near future," Salzberger said.