Dear Nvidia Team,
My name is Zoey Chen, and I am the Logistics sub-team lead of UCL Rover under UCL Racing and the UCL Mechanical Engineering department. After looking into the available products you manufacture and distribute in the market, we are reaching out to discuss a sponsorship opportunity with Nvidia regarding the Jetson Orin series. The UCL Rover team has previously utilized an Nvidia Jetson and is looking to upgrade the hardware this year with the goal to become the first UK team building a fully autonomous rover.
UCL Rover is a student-led, interdisciplinary team from University College London dedicated to designing, building, and testing a Mars rover inspired by NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance. We participate in the European Rover Challenge (ERC), where approximately 70 teams from 23 countries compete to complete a series of challenging tasks. This year, we aim to qualify and represent UCLR in Poland, setting a new milestone for our team. To learn more about UCL Racing and the Rover team, please feel free to check our website and social medias:
UCLR Website: UCL Racing (UCLR) | Mechanical Engineering - UCL – University College London
UCLR LinkedIn: UCL Racing | LinkedIn
UCLR Instagram: UCL Racing (@uclracing) • Instagram photos and videos
As we prepare to manufacture our rover, the Jetson Orin series plays a crucial role with regards to control, providing the necessary computational power for real-time autonomous tasks and advanced graphic processing for object detection. Its powerful GPU accelerates deep learning models, enabling efficient processing of complex vision algorithms critical for obstacle avoidance, terrain mapping, and target recognition. Additionally, it is capable of handling large volumes of data from LiDAR sensors, allowing for real-time 3D mapping and precise localization, which are vital for autonomous navigation. Its high energy efficiency and compact form factor make it ideal for integration into space-constrained environments like the Mars, ensuring optimal performance without compromising power consumption. All of these factors make it the perfect component to integrate into our rover.
The UCL Rover became the first UK team to qualify for the ERC with Nvidia’s kind sponsorship in 2018. We look forward to achieve new breakthroughs with Nvidia again this year to construct a fully autonomous rover. If we are able to procure the Jetson Orin series via Nvidia under preferential terms, it would greatly reduce our financial constraints and allow us to compete at a higher level with other global teams.
Thank you very much for considering our request and please feel free to contact us for further information about this sponsorship. We are more than happy to set up a call with your team and our Team Lead Yusuf, and meanwhile should you have any questions send us a message and we will respond as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
Zoey Chen
UCL Rover