MBZIRC Maritime Grand Challenge Provides Opportunity For Unmanned Systems Competition, Collaboration, Innovation

The Mohammed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC) is a global competition designed to push the boundaries of autonomous robotics. With a total prize purse of over US $3 million, the challenge is held every two years in Abu Dhabi, UAE, and provides universities, research centers, companies, and individual innovators an opportunity to address global challenges through the development of autonomous robotic technology. The upcoming edition, called the MBZIRC Maritime Grand Challenge, seeks to claim its place among the largest and most prestigious AI and robotics competitions in the world. The Maritime Grand Challenge recognizes that advanced technologies can provide solutions to maritime safety and security threats like illegal fishing, piracy, smuggling, and coastline security. There’s still time to bring your autonomous tech out of the lab and into the real world – the call for registrations is open until January 31, 2022. Participants will have the chance to compete for more than US $3 million with first prize taking US $2 million, US $500,000 for second place, and US $250,000 for third place. Additionally, teams progressing to the final demonstration phase will split prize of US $500,000 in addition to receiving US $50,000 to be put towards the cost of their robotic arm. Further, the organizers will provide the simulation environment for the second phase. The Challenge calls for collaboration among unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and unmanned surface vehicles (USV) to perform complex navigation and manipulation tasks in a GNSS-denied environment at sea to detect unfriendly vessels and move or capture cargo. The Challenge is organized by ASPIRE, the dedicated technology program management pillar of the Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC), the overarching advanced technology research body in Abu Dhabi, UAE. In the initial white paper phase, each participating team is required to submit a white paper by  January 31, 2022, describing the team; the background in swarm robotics; computer vision; simultaneous localization and mapping; marine vehicle expertise, communications capabilities, and the technical approach to be used in solving the Challenge. In the simulation phase next year, the participating teams will be required to complete inspection and intervention tasks in simulation. In August 2022, this phase will see the shortlisting of the five finalist teams. Teams will also need to submit proof-of-concept videos on the different sub-components of their system and demonstrate the feasibility of the approach used. In the final demonstration phase that takes place in June 2023, teams will prove their system capabilities. Evaluation will be based on the total time required to complete the inspection and intervention tasks. This phase includes inspection, ID, and manipulation subtasks, with winning team completing the tasks in the quickest time with the fewest errors. Are you ready for the challenge? 

For more information, visit www.mbzirc.com and watch the video below: