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Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition

Posted by michael on from the ahoooga-ahoooga dept.

krugg234 writes "Today [ed. note: well, a few days ago] marks the start of the Fifth Annual International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition. This year's competition involves completely autonomous robots locating and reading bar codes at various depths underwater at a naval base in San Diego. There are some good links on the site to individual competitors' websites to see how different schools tackled the same problem."

2 of 66 comments (clear)

  1. Why don't they make it interesting by Atonomous+Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    To spice things up, why not allow the teams to equip their subs with short-range torpedoes? This would be fun to bet on. Also, it would serve as a more practical simulation of where modern warfare is headed. This would be even more badass if they used instead.

  2. laser bar code readers? by eracerblue · · Score: 2, Interesting

    most of the teams that are actually recording bar codes are just using a simple webcam in waterproof enclosure. the on-board computer then performs some processor intenstive code to recognize bar codes in all sorts of conditions (orientation, etc).

    what i'm curious about is why no-one went with a bar code reading system similar to that in use in a grocery store? certainly the hardware modifications are possible to make a cheapo and less processor intensive solution like that work underwater.

    thoughts??