|
MIT Makes it Two in a Row at AUV Competition
August 9, 1999 -- For the second year, a team of students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) took first place in the 2nd Annual International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition, sponsored by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) and the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR).
With names like ORCA-II, SubjuGator, SQUID, Trout and Poseidon, the entrants showed up with a wide range of AUV designs with varying degrees of elegance and robustness and battled amidst heat and thunderstorms for more than $12,000 in prize money.
The event, hosted by the U.S. Navy's Coastal Systems Station, required the AUVs to autonomously (as the name says) navigate a series of underwater "gates" and, having completed that mission, to locate and follow a pipeline to a predetermined recovery zone. As a bonus element, the vehicles could mark the recovery area with a depth marker if they so desired. In addition to points for each team's "run" in the pond, points were earned for a required journal paper, and on static judging by a panel of underwater systems experts.
With significant progress in system capabilities from the first year, MIT completed all six gates to take first place and a prize of $5,000. University of Florida posed stiff competition and successfully navigated four of the six gates No other team completed more than a single gate.
|
Competitions
