Day Three

This is the entry from Ecole de Technologie Superieure, a university in Quebec. They were the only Canadian team. Their web page is found here. They were not really ready at all for the competition, and decided not to put their sub in the water at all.

They plan to be back next year, with much better preparation.

They have a lot of pictures from the competition here, although the page is in french.

This is the AUV from Cal Poly. Their web site is here. They didn't do very well -- I'm not sure if their sub made it into the water or not.

Here's the AUV from the University of Western Florida. Their somewhat spotty web page is here. They had a problem with their depth sensor, so they rigged a couple of bottle floats, one with a 3' wire, and one with a 4' wire. Each float had a water sensor in it, so the sub could stay between 3 and 4 feet by testing the sensors. There's a better picture here.

Here's the UWF AUV heading out for its autonomous run. They went off in a big arc, and eventually the navy divers brought it back.

Here you can see the TV crane, that they used to film the competition. The Office of Naval Research (the people who funded the entire competition) paid a company to do a professional documentary film of the competition.

Here's the AUV from the University of Colorado - Denver. Their web site is here. They got into the water, but didn't get anywhere.

Here's the AUV from the University of Rhode Island. Their web site is here, although it doesn't seem to be there right now. I ended up helping these guys a bunch on their software, since they didn't have anyone on the team who was a programmer.

Here's a navy diver handing off the URI sub to the diver in the water. On their first try, the torque from the single propellor caused the sub to go off course to the left before it started its search pattern. We decided to adjust the rudder a small amount to the right to compensate for it. On the second run, the sub went off to the right -- we compensated too much. So we got the navy guys to bring it back again, and adjusted it to have just a tiny amount of rudder compensation.

Here's the start of the final run, with Ryan getting ready to push the 'Run' button on the remote control...

...and off it goes... This time, it went out straight, and headed straight out into the lake. When it got out near the center of the lake, it started its search pattern, and almost immediately detected the strobe light with the light sensor. Each beacon had a video camera attached to it, and you could see on the screen as the sub whooshed by, missing the ring by about six inches. After that something went wrong, and it ended up burying its nose in the bottom, so the divers bought it back. The team decided to keep that run, since they had (up to that point) come the closest of any team to getting the ring. Making the decision to quit while they were ahead turned out to be a pretty smart decision...

Here's the AUV from Amador Valley High School, the only high school team to enter the competition. Their web site is here. They had a number of problems, including burned-out speed controllers to deal with. They ended up doing a short autonomous underwater run, just to get the points for that.

Here's the AVHS AUV in the water, getting ready to do its autonomous run.

And here it is, about 30 feet out into the water, after it did its autonomous run.

Here's the University of Florida's AUV. Their web site is here. They came in second place last year, and, according to their web site, they got 7th place this year. Their depth sensor didn't work either. Seemed to be a problem with a few teams.

Here's the U.S. Naval Academy AUV. Their mostly-empty web site is here. They had a nice-looking AUV, and it seemed to perform fairly well.

Here's the Naval Academy sub in the water, completing a large circle towards the beacon that was flashing. They were using acoustic sensors to triangulate on the active beacon, and it seemed to work right up to where their sub buried itself into the mud at the bottom of the lake...

Here's the AUV from Stevens Institute of Technology. Their web site is here.

Here is their sub, in the water next to the dock. It did a small circle next to the dock, and then seemed to head towards the shore.

Here's the AUV from Cornell University. Their web site is here. They tied for second place this year with MIT. Their sub was able to autonomously find the beacon that was active, but due to problems with the vertical thrusters, couldn't dive down to retrieve the ring.

And here's a better view of the Cornell AUV, sitting on the sand. The two prongs sticking out and down on each side at the front are the acoustic microphones, which are used to triangulate the direction the sound from the pinger is coming from.

And, finally, the entry from MIT. Their web site is here. They had a nice AUV, a very professional team, and everyone expected them to win again this year. They tied for second place with Cornell.

Here's Orca-2 sitting on the dock, getting ready for its autonomous run.

And there it goes, across the lake, presumably listening for the acoustic pinger...

...of course, it helps if you turn towards it... They just kept going, right over to the other side of the lake. They basically ran out of time, and that was that.