AUVSI and ONR’s 12th Annual International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition starts up tomorrow (July 30th), with two days of prelimiary runs and testing, followed by 2 days of competition this weekend. Last year’s winner, University of Maryland, along with 29 other teams are signed up to compete. Several of the teams have blogs where you can follow the competition as it unfolds. Cornell (update: along with ETS) will also be tweeting the events. You can read the full rules for this year’s competition, entitled “Divin’ Dozen”, here.

Personally, I’m rooting for the NCSU Underwater Robotics Club – a club I helped found. Go wolfpack!

Update: Here’s a nice compilation shot of a bunch of different vehicles at the competition. The picture was taken by the Naval Academy Team.

Update: We have winners!

 

Robotic Technology Inc. is working on a robot that is powered by biomass – grass, wood, or even dead bodies. The steam powered robot, which is being developed for the Pentagon under a Phase II SBIR grant, is designed for fuel itself off materials in its environment. While the title, “… could feed on dead bodies”, is quite sensational, the ability to power a vehicle using naturally occurring sources of fuel would be a big boon to military vehicles. The “Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot”, or EATR,

… will be powered by the Waste Heat Engine developed by Cyclone Power Technology of Pompano Beach, Fla., which uses an “external combustion chamber” burning up fuel to heat up water in a closed loop, generating electricity.

All that said, in Skynet’s view, what’s the difference between a dead and a live body? Questions to ponder.

Update: Ah ha! I feel vindicated now. RTI and Cyclone Power have issued a press release to combat the roumors that EATR will feed off of dead bodies. Interestingly enough, descriation of the war dead is a crime under the Geneva Convention.

Here’s a neat design by Nils Volker for a spherical rolling robot. The robot propels itself forward by turning about its axis, and can change the direction of motion by dynamically changing the axis of rotation. This seems to be a more efficient design than having a suspended pendulum which causes the sphereical robot to curve to one side or the other – a common design among other “ball” robots. Nils robot uses LEGO Mindstorms for electronics/mechanics and is remotely controlled via a bluetooth connection.

Nice work Nils!

More pictures/video after the jump.

[Via Robots Dreams]

(more…)

AeroVironment, maker of several important military UAVs like the Wasp, Raven, and Dragon Eye , has received a Phase II SBIR grant from DARPA to continue work on it’s hummingbird-like nano UAV (NAV), which propels itself with flapping wings. In the video shown above, the vehicles stability control is shown, including take-offs from a standstill.

“The goals of the NAV program — namely to develop an approximately 10 gram aircraft that can hover for extended periods, can fly at forward speeds up to 10 meters per second, can withstand 2.5 meter per second wind gusts, can operate inside buildings, and have up to a kilometer command and control range — will stretch our understanding of flight at these small sizes and require novel technology development.”

The Phase II contract is worth $2.1 million USD and will continue through the summer of 2010.

[Via Slashdot]