Frequently Asked Questions

The measurement will include the antenna. This will increase the volume but will also encourage teams to think about smaller rovers, or perhaps rovers that have a smaller form factor for deployment (and measurement) then expand for operation once the task is underway.

You are certainly allowed to use your own technology in the base station (as long as it conforms to the other requirements).

You will see lots of examples of different base station set ups if you watch the streaming video from ARCh 2025 (still available from Previous Challenges: Videos).

The Australian Rover Challenge is a lunar-focused rover competition and does not currently allow flying robots. You are welcome to have a micro-rover that separates from your main rover and drives separately, but a flying drone would not be permitted.

As per rule 3.17.2, we provide a recommended COTS device (see the hyperlink). The current plan is to measure the starting power during weigh-in, along with the rover size and mass, and the final power immediately at the end of the task. This way it ensures measurements are standardized across all teams and prevents cheating by recording power during the idle period from weigh-in to task start time where teams could, for example, heat-up their water extraction systems for Space Resources Task prior to the task start time and have that power not recorded.

You are permitted to use a custom power display, (as stated in Rule 3.17.2 "....or some similar alternative that allows judges to clearly record the power consumed during a task"). A team can also record power consumption and log it to a .csv using custom GUI. The starting power/voltage would correspond to the allocated start time of the weigh-in.

If you are drilling/handling lunar regolith simulant, like LHS-1 specifically purchased from a supplier like Space Resources Technologies, then there is an inhalation hazard associated with the extremely fine particle sized (<100 micron) silicates. However, if you are just drilling into sand, like the white-washed sand from Soilworx, or Bunnings, then this is the same sand you would find in a children’s sand pit and poses no risk.

The particle size distribution of these materials often contains <<1% ultra-fines which is the hazard. Also, the moment you add any water, as you would when preparing an icy sample, you neutralize any fines as they aggregate and adhere to larger particles, forming something called funicular clusters - this is the same mechanism that allows you to make sandcastles. To ensure 100% compliance, you should complete your tests in a ventilated room (i.e. with an open window or A/C).

A Vacuum System does inherently violate Rule 3.8, as it relies on an air-breathing system where negative pressure is generated through a fan acting on ambient atmospheric pressure. Although the Moon has an exosphere, it is basically a handful of molecules per metre and is on the order of 10^-12 Torr.

Similar systems have been used on the Moon before - see PlanetVac which was built by Honeybee Robotics and flew on the Firefly Blue Ghost lander this year. However, this system does not "ingest ambient air....to operate" as per Rule 3.8.  Instead, it utilises an onboard reservoir to support pneumatic operation. The use of compressed gas caries with it safety issues which you would need to explicitly and comprehensively address and accommodate. We would need to see clear safety plans outlined in your CDR / SAR submissions and approved by your university. 

That interpretation is correct. This was the intention of the "or" in the original requirement.

Magenta indicates there is an error with the indicator light itself (so would be good for a timeout or error handler on the software that changes light colour), whereas red indicates an error has occurred with the rest of the rover (so beyond just a light issue).

These are deliberately left undefined (also note that the wording of this rule has not change from previous iterations of ARCh).

It only has to be airtight when handed to the judges, this is mostly just to ensure your sample does not evaporate between the time it is collected, and the time a judge is able to measure it, which can be a period of up to several hours.

As per rule : 3.8 "rovers shall utilize power applicable to off-earth operations. Fans are allowed for the purpose of cooling the rover." In this context, fans cannot be used to promote cooling of water extraction/condensation systems, because the dissipation of heat can only occur via radiation and conduction on the Moon, the use of fans to promote convective removal of heat is not possible due to no atmosphere. As a real-world problem faced by private space companies right now, have you considered efficient passive cooling solutions? 

In Rule 10.4.1 there are 2 points are available for imaging each site (whole container + Marker). In Rule 10.4.4 there are an additional 12 points are available for providing close-up images of the sample. They are separate images each receiving separate points.

There is an element of judgement on this from the field judge. They will not penalise multiple connections with the same object as part of a move (so only one penalty if the rover front and back wheels run over something) but would record multiple penalties if the rover came back and hit the same object again.

This is deliberately not defined in the rules. It would be good if you made it so that your system could deal with different marker types.

This is a very interesting area. Ideally, teams should be operating under legal shared frequencies with legal power limits (i.e. in accordance with the LIPD class license). It should be noted however, that (as mentioned in Rule 3.12.5) we are not monitoring any of these bands. For the 900/2.4k/2.5kHz bands we are comfortable for teams to ensure they are doing sensible things themselves, and we also monitor Wi-Fi channels to help at least see when there is an issue and who is likely causing it. Our reasoning for Rule 3.12.3.2 is that UWB is starting to get a bit more outside usual operation and bespoke, and we want to further ensure teams are actually complying with the relevant regulations.

If you are operating under a public class license like LIPD, then we are happy for the approval to just be based on references to the specific license and legislation, along with evidence that your systems conform, without personalised documentation from ACMA. If you are not operating under a public class license, then we want to see more detailed evidence that you have the appropriate permits / licenses / approvals / etc. from ACMA. 

We have some data that has been used mostly for promotional purposes, but it will need significant processing and adjustment before it could be shared. We would then need to very systematically share it with all teams at the same time, noting that fairness is a key part of our considerations as we answer questions and support teams. So, we do not have anything we can share right now, but it is certainly something that we are exploring for the future. We would advise collecting your own data for this work or connecting with other teams in your local area to share resources.

With regards to off-board positioning systems, we direct teams to (non-exhaustively) consider rules 3.1.2, 3.12.3, 3.13, 3.14, 3.15, and 12.4. The text as of 2026 version 1.0 is ambiguous but rule 3.13 is intended to specifically disallow to external off-board positioning that relies on satellites or transmissions outside of the team's design and control. Teams may operate their own, local off-board positioning systems, provided that:

• it complies with rule 3.14 and does not use magnetometers;
• it complies with rule 3.12.3 including the 3.12.3.2 provision requiring prior written permission for UWB operation; and
• all components are either a) deployed on-pitch with the rover in accordance with rule 3.1.2 and other rules including those about status lights, E-STOPs, etc. AND/OR b) are deployed as part of the base station antenna array in accordance with rule 3.15.

As all systems must operate in a rules-compliant way either as deployable from the rover or entirely contained within the antenna zone, it is disallowed to place any kind of active or passive beacon or antenna in any other position near or on the competition pitch. There are multiple possible antenna zones for each pitch that teams may be arbitrarily directed to use, so teams must keep this in mind if designing off-board positioning systems that require use of the antenna zone. Zero consideration will be given to teams' preferences for the use of one antenna zone over another – the allocation of base stations and hence antenna zones is driven by logistical and scheduling constraints and hence is at the judges' sole discretion.

Crucially, for the mapping and autonomous task alone, due to rule 12.4, it is not allowed to use off-board positioning systems that use components within the antenna zone. This is because such a system would rely on measurements between the rover/origin and the antenna zone taken during setup, which are not provided by the judges or collected during the task time. Even if it possible to attempt to design a solution to only rely on relative range/bearing measurements from the start of the task time without initial absolute calibration, the intent of the mapping and autonomous task is to encourage development of robust, self-contained, on-board autonomy systems, and so off-board positioning using the antenna zone for this task only is explicitly disallowed. Deployable beacons or similar subsystems that begin the task with the rover are still allowed as normal, however.

The map format (2D/3D, colour/geometry, etc.) teams produce is entirely up to teams. In fact, points are explicitly awarded in the Mapping and Autonomous task presentation for this format selection and justification thereof.

The format of the provided map has varied over time and is not provided as a specified format. In 2025 it was a basic grid which included infrastructure and locations and orientations of key landmarks.