Maryland Student Team Wins International Underwater Robot Competition

	The Robotics@Maryland team members who competed in San Diego. Click for larger photo.

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - A team of University of Maryland students and their underwater robot, Tortuga II, won an international underwater robotics competition held in San Diego, Calif., this past weekend. The "Robotics@Maryland" team won the competition in only its second year of participation.

The University of Maryland team competed against 25 other teams from across the United States, India, Canada and Japan in the 11th Annual International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Competition sponsored by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International and the Office of Naval Research. Each team had to design and build an autonomous (self-guided) underwater vehicle capable of navigating realistic underwater missions. The other schools whose robots placed in the top eight, were University of Texas at Dallas, École de technologie supérieure, University of Florida, U.S. Naval Academy, University of Victoria, Cornell University and Florida Atlantic University.

"This is one of the biggest university competitions of the year in the autonomous vehicle world, and it's unheard of for a team to win in its second year," said Dave Akin, director of the university's Space Systems Laboratory, and a faculty advisor to the team. "I can testify that the team members worked incredibly hard for months developing and perfecting their vehicle."

Maryland's team overcame many challenges during the three-day competition, and led at the end of each day's events. "Despite losing our main vehicle computer, busting a thruster propeller, temporarily losing our firewire cameras, and watching three team member's laptops die (including mine), the group worked together and handled each problem in turn," said Joseph Gland, graduate student advisor for the Robotics@Maryland team.

The final competition entailed dead reckoning approximately 50 feet through the starting gate, pipeline following, buoy docking, tracking and hovering over an acoustic pinger, grabbing an object and surfacing with it to a floating ring, Gland said.

Tortuga II lurks in the depths of Neutral Buoyancy Research Facility the day before it is packed into its crate for the trip to the competition in San Diego.

The Robotics@Maryland team benefited from the University of Maryland's Neutral Buoyancy Research Facility in the Space Systems Laboratory. This facility, the only such university-based facility in the country, is a 50-foot diameter, 25-foot deep water tank that is used to simulate the microgravity environment of space. Director Akin allowed the student group to test their autonomous underwater robot, Tortuga II, at the facility, which proved a valuable environment for practicing the robot's maneuvering capabilities.

Robotics@Maryland Home Page

AUVSI Release

08133