The exhibition, entitled "Doors of the Future Wide Open. Czech innovations that shone at the World Expo 2020 in Dubai" will be on display from 28 June 2023 to 31 March 2024 in the main building of the National Technical Museum. In 20 installations, the exhibition will showcase Czech innovations that will change life in the cities of the future in five areas: food accessibility, clean energy, environment, nature conservation and the use of 3D printers.
Unique among unmanned vehicles
Formula DV.01 is the first domestic car with autonomous driving and one of the first in Europe. Mechanically, it is based on the seventh generation of the piloted electric model. The ability to drive fully autonomously is provided by a set of sensors led by a camera and LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging; sensors mapping the distances of objects by calculating the propagation time of a laser beam pulse reflected from the object being scanned). The signals are processed by a neural network. From the processed data, the formula then plans a route and speed profile, which it then navigates independently.
"One of the biggest successes of our team was the opportunity to participate in EXPO 2020 in Dubai, where our formula was exhibited in the Czech pavilion. It was a big challenge for us, as we had to prepare the formula for departure to Dubai within 14 days, sort out all the necessary documents and, most importantly, complete the exams, as we left before the end of the examination period. In the end, everything was successful and we gained unrepeatable experience and inspiration, for example, when meeting university students in the United Arab Emirates," said Ondřej Kuban, the head of the autonomous group.
The eForce team was founded in 2010 under the auspices of CTU Faculty of Eletrical Engineering. It's been 13 years since they have been developing and building electric monoposts. For this season, the team has built the 12th generation of the electric formula car, which will be capable of both piloted and purely autonomous driving. This is in response to a rule change that requires all cars to also participate in pure autonomous events. The team consists of 45 male and female undergraduate and graduate students, mainly from Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. According to the current world ranking, the student formula is 17th in the world, 9th in Europe and has no competition in the Czech Republic.
Aerial robots commemorate the centenary of Čapek's R.U.R.
Two years ago, the Multirobotic Systems (MRS) Group from the Department of Cybernetics of CTU Faculty of Electrical Engineering participated in the world's largest exhibition of future technologies in Dubai. It was as part of the Robot's 100th Birthday rotating exhibition in the Czech pavilion, which commemorated one hundred years since the word 'robot' was first heard in Karel Čapek's play.
Among other things, the joint pilot project of FEL and Packeta Group for autonomous delivery of parcels by drones was presented at EXPO 2020. This was not the first time the MRS Group's aerial robots had been in the UAE.
"It was in the United Arab Emirates that we first established ourselves in an international context when we participated in the prestigious Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC) in Abu Dhabi in 2017 and won first and second place in individual disciplines. We were able to build on this success in the next edition in 2020, when we were additionally declared the overall winner of the competition," said then doc. Martin Saska, head of the MRS research group.
