The Defense Ministry has challenged engineering students to come up with a robot vehicle platform to help in its fight against terrorists in urban environments.

Thousands of dollars for the winners are being offered in the "autonomous ground vehicle" competition set up by the Defense Research and Development Organization in New Delhi, which has put details of requirements on its Web site.

The competition rules say the "autonomous robots" will "serve and protect military, law enforcement and security professionals engaged in low-intensity conflict and anti-terrorism activities in urban and unstructured environments."

The overall winner will get the equivalent of $43,200 and the runner-up just over $21,000. However, the students will have to work hard for their winnings because the machines will not be remote controlled. Instead, they must be programmable so they learn from the terrain they cross and react to it, all without input from observing personnel.

The 3-foot-wide robot will be essentially a pre-programmed platform that carries whatever equipment is needed to do a specified job such as help in bomb disposal or fight fires. It will be part of the ministry's Low Intensity Conflict and Explosive Ordnance Disposal program.

Specifications include a maximum speed of 6 mph carrying up to almost 45 pounds of equipment, according to the DRDO Web site. The overall winner will successfully navigate a third-of-a-mile (1,640-foot) closed-loop obstacle course within 20 minutes with the help of GPS way points and land marks.

The width of the course will be just over 9 feet but no less than 4 feet.

Competitors will not see the course until one hour before putting their creation through its paces. Whatever programming of the robot is needed must be done within that hour for the machine to handle obstacles such sand 3 inches deep, gravel size at most 2 inches in diameter and a maximum grade of 15 degrees.

Also, the robot will have to clamber over a maximum of six steps that are 7 inches high and 10 inches deep.

The competition is open to teams of six students at most, and all must be in their third and final fourth year of studies at an Indian college. A maximum of two teams from any one college will be allowed and a team is allowed only one college supervisor.

The hardest part for the teams will be getting sensor systems and software programs right, the ministry explained. This allows the collection and interpretation of data for the vehicle to operate autonomously.

"Generation of terrain profile, detection of positive and negative obstacles, lethal drop-off, safe down-slope, pothole, waterhole, geometric profile, penetrability and compressibility are to be understood for autonomous navigation," the DRDO said.

Technologies for autonomous navigation include kinematics, real-time perception system, multi-sensor data fusion, localization and path planning and robust vehicle control.

The military said it will need such robots to work in contaminated environments, to do reconnaissance and target identification as well as minefield detection and neutralization work. It will also be called upon simply to deliver goods from one point to another across an area exposed to enemy fire.

Teams must make their submissions by Mar. 31. The final competition will be Sept. 27-29 in the coastal city of Chennai, formerly known as Madras and capital of Tamil Nadu state.

Australia is also looking to students for its next-generation of military robots under its Multi-Autonomous Ground-robotic International Challenge. It was set up last July by the Defense Department in partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense.

The top three finalists will receive research awards of $750,000, $250,000 and $100,000.