About Us:

The team members participate in an Autonomous Underwater Vechicle Design course. The course teaches the practical aspects of autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) system design. This is a hands-on project-oriented course, where students will design, build, and operate an autonomous vehicle to perform some specific mission. Students undertake a challenging design project supervised by course instructors; students are involved in all aspects of design and system integration required for a successful AUV. These aspects include: vehicle design, propulsion, power, sensing, signal processing, actuation, control, and autonomy. The ultimate objective of the course is to develop systems that are suitable for participation in the RoboSub autonomous vehicle competition sponsored by AUVSI: http://www.auvsifoundation.org/foundation/competitions/robosub.

While the main focus of the course is underwater vehicles, many of the design aspects apply to general robotics applications. Students can expect to gain experience in the design process required to solve a practical vehicle design problem. Other skills emphasized are working effectively in a team environment and communicating developments in both verbal and written formats. Practical experience in testing of an autonomous vehicle will also be an outcome.

The Technical Sub-groups

The entire group is divided into five technical sub-groups.

• Control Group
• Autonomy Group
• Estimation Group
• Vision Group
• Mechanical/Electronics Group

The Team's Objective

The entire group is tasked with developing a vechicle to compete in the 2015 Robosub Competition, which occurs on July 20 - July 26, 2015. The competition has the following challenges our vehicle must perform:

• Underwater navigation
• Agile maneuvering
• Sonar localization
• Manipulation of environment
• Fire projectiles
• Retrieve objects

The RoboSub competition is located at the SSC Pacific TRANSDEC, San Diego, CA.

A variety of obstacles are arranged in the competition pool. To score the most points, the AUV must navigate to each obstacle and perform a maneuver or task. The figure below shows the approximate layout of the obstacles in the 2015 competition. More information about the rules and tasks can be found on the RoboSub website here.