Bandung – Students from the Faculty of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (FTMD) at Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB) have achieved yet another accomplishment. The Jantera ITB team, consisting of three Aerospace Engineering students from the batch 2020 namely Mutaqin, Faza, and Yuman, have won first place and the favorite award at the Mechanical & Marine Engineering National Exposition 2022 (MMENE 2022) organized by the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Indonesia. 

The MMENE 2022 is a national-scale competition participated by students from various universities in Indonesia. This year’s theme was “Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions Through Technologies and Various Activities Towards Indonesia’s Low Carbon Scenario”. There were three categories of competition in this event: aircraft innovation, case study, and maritime innovation. 

The Jantera team joined the aircraft innovation category with the innovative idea of Drone RAQTR (Rotary Armed Quad Tilted Rotor) for inspecting energy facilities in the New National Capital (IKN). The aircraft innovation category challenges participants to create a UAV design for a low-carbon scenario in developing of smart cities in Indonesia. 

The Jantera team acknowledged that the competition was well-prepared, even with a short time frame. The first thing they did was to find problems related to the low-carbon scenario, in line with this year’s theme. They were interested in making energy-efficient drones. When aligned with the development in IKN, they saw the need for drones used for inspections on the development of New and Renewable Energy (EBT) facilities in IKN. Drones available in the market have limited energy coverage, only able to perform one inspection for one drone with the energy it possesses. Thus, a drone that can cover more than one inspection with the energy capacity it possesses is needed. 

After going through many trials and testing, it was found that the Jantera team’s innovative solution, the Drone RAQTR, was able to save energy twice as much as the drones available on the market. This brilliant idea was then made into a prototype on a smaller scale. 

“Teamwork, unique presentation ideas, and full support from FTMD,” explained the Jantera team leader when asked about the factors that contributed to their victory. 

The journey to creating the RAQTR prototype was not easy, but the team’s cohesion and drive for success propelled them to the top. Full support from FTMD and the best guidance they received from Dr. Yazdi Ibrahim Jenie played a significant role in their victory this time. Furthermore, it was also thanks to FTMD which equipped the team with all the necessary resources and facilities to turn their innovative idea into a reality.