Academic Sponsorship Request – Jetson Orin Nano Super for International Rover Challenge (IRC) 2027

Robotics & Edge Computing Jetson Systems Jetson Orin Nano
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Dear NVIDIA Academic & Developer Relations Team,

Greetings from Universo – Space & Astronomy Club, AISSMS College of Engineering, Pune, India.

Universo is a student-led technical organization dedicated to advanced engineering initiatives in aerospace and robotics. The team has previously secured All India Rank 2 at a national-level rocketry competition conducted at IIT Kharagpur and continues to build structured, research-oriented engineering projects across domains.

Our team is currently developing a six-wheel autonomous rover for participation in the International Rover Challenge (IRC) 2027, a Mars-analog competition that requires robust perception, navigation, and real-time autonomous decision-making in unstructured terrain.

After evaluating our system requirements, we have finalized the NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano Super as the primary onboard compute platform for our rover. Our planned autonomy architecture includes:

  • Real-time stereo vision and depth estimation

  • Visual SLAM and terrain mapping

  • AI-based object detection and classification

  • Multi-sensor fusion (LiDAR, IMU, and camera systems)

  • ROS2-based navigation and control stack

  • CUDA and TensorRT accelerated inference

The Jetson Orin Nano Super provides the GPU acceleration and parallel processing capability required to deploy full AI inference pipelines directly at the edge — a critical requirement for reliable autonomous rover performance in field conditions.

We are writing to explore the possibility of academic sponsorship support in the form of a Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit (or equivalent Jetson platform) for our IRC 2027 rover initiative.

Should NVIDIA choose to support our project, we would be glad to acknowledge the Jetson platform across our technical documentation, competition materials, and outreach activities, while sharing implementation insights and field performance observations developed using the platform.

We would sincerely appreciate guidance regarding any academic hardware programs, student initiatives, or sponsorship pathways available.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Warm regards,

Keyur Pawar
Team Captain, Universo – Space & Astronomy Club
AISSMS College of Engineering, Pune, India
universsospaxeclub@gmail.com

Project References:
Dhruv-I First Test (Mobility Validation) and Initial Rover Prototypes:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kTHULfQ30zR_i_7b_xIfY-Jy_Bbgkimw?usp=sharing

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Let me forward your request to internal team to see if able to contact with you.
In the meantime, you may also check Academic Grant Program for Researchers | NVIDIA, that’s another way to grant the support. Thanks

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Thank you for forwarding our request to the internal team. We truly appreciate your support.

As we are preparing our rover for the International Rover Challenge (IRC) 2027 and are targeting system completion around September–October 2026, early access to the compute platform would greatly help us in development, testing, and integration.

We will also explore the NVIDIA Academic Grant Program as suggested. Since that process involves coordination with our faculty and institutional procedures, it may take some additional time to complete.

Please feel free to let us know if any further information about our project would be helpful. We would be happy to provide additional details.

Thank you once again for your guidance and support.

Warm regards,
Keyur Pawar
Team Captain, Universo – Space & Astronomy Club AISSMS College of Engineering, Pune, India universsospaxeclub@gmail.com