The Urban Autonomous Mobility Challenge by Fedex Alfa IIT Bombay

All that you need to know about The Urban Autonomous Mobility Challenge  | Techfest 2026-27  About: The Urban Autonomous Mobility Challenge (UAMC) is a national robotics competition by Techfest, IIT Bombay, inspired by the Bosch Future Mobility Challenge, that invites student teams to design, build, and program a scaled autonomous vehicle capable of navigating a miniature urban environment entirely on its own. Teams build one vehicle that handles the complete urban circuit, lane discipline, intersections, pedestrian safety, parking, and dynamic traffic, as it escalates in complexity round by round. A remote qualification stage 6-8 weeks before the festival ensures every team arrives with a working, tested vehicle, so the 3-day festival window at Techfest, IIT Bombay, is spent proving readiness rather than debugging. Bring your self-driving car to life at Asia's largest science and technology festival. Structure: The competition runs as a remote qualification stage followed by on-site rounds, entirely within Techfest's 3-day festival window. Eligibility: Open to undergraduate/postgraduate students with a valid ID from any recognized institution. Teams may include students from different institutes. Team size: 3-5 members per team, with one designated Team Lead, fielding only one vehicle. Faculty or industry mentors may guide teams but cannot be present at or assist during any timed run. Round 1 - Qualification (Online) Teams submit a 3-5 minute video of their vehicle completing a basic lane-following and stop-at-obstacle task on a self-built practice track, along with a 1-2 page Technical Design Document (TDD) covering system architecture, perception approach, and safety design (E-stop and failure handling). Only the Team Leader may submit; multiple submissions are not accepted. The top 25 teams are invited on-site. Round 2 - On-Site Elimination Heats (Techfest, Day 1-2) Qualified teams arrive Day 1 for check-in, technical inspection, and a fixed practice slot on the actual arena. Day 2 runs two heats: the Basic Navigation Heat (lane-keeping, one stop-sign intersection, one pedestrian crossing, one static obstacle), from which the top 60% of teams advance, and the Intermediate Navigation Heat (adding a traffic-light intersection, a roundabout, and autonomous parking), from which the top 8-10 teams advance to Round 3. Round 3 - Semifinal & Grand Finale (Techfest, Day 3) The Semifinal runs the full urban circuit combining every earlier element, ranked by score, with the top 4-6 teams advancing to the Grand Finale. The Grand Finale adds a dynamic obstacle/overtaking segment and a randomized surprise rule (such as a mid-run detour) announced only at the start of the day, to test genuine generalization. Winners are determined by total score across positive points, penalties, and time-based tiebreakers, with results announced the same evening. Timeline: Registration deadline - 31st October 2026 Round 1 (Qualification) submission - 10th November 2026 Round 1 results - 17th/24th November 2026 Final arena layout released - 24th November/1st December 2026 Round 2 (Elimination Heats) - 16th-17th December 2026 Round 3 (Semifinal & Grand Finale) - 18th December 2026 Rewards And Prizes: INR 3,80,000 for the top 3 winners. Certificates for all participants who qualify for Round 2.