Russian gas company Gazprom wants to build an oil pipeline from Vyborg, Russia to Greifswald, Germany. The pipeline will supply 26 million homes with natural gas for heating. There’s one big problem though – the pipeline runs over the Baltic Sea-floor which is still covered by up to 150,000 unexploded mines placed there during World War II. In order to allow the $10 billion USD project to continue, Bactec International has been hired to build an underwater robot to find and detonate the unexploded ordinances that lie in the path of the pipeline.

The robot, which will help perform the biggest commercial mine-clearance project ever, will locate approximately 70 mines, each filled with over 600 lbs of explosives. Once the exact location of each mine is determined, a support ship will warn any others ships in the area to leave, monitor for marine animals in the area, and the robot will maneuver a smaller (10 lbs) detonation charge near the unexploded ordinance. Once all ships, the robot, and any marine animals are clear of the area, the mine is destroyed and the robot will return to recover the remains of the bomb.

[Via Slashdot]

The famous underwater ROV (remotely operated vehicle), Jason, which was integral in discovering the wreck of the Titanic and other famous ships, recently captured a spectacular underwater volcano eruption in high definition. This extremely rare event is even more impressive considering it’s 4000 feet (1200 meters) below the ocean’s surface, in an area of the Pacific ocean near Fiji. This is the deepest erupting underwater volcano ever discovered and the extreme water pressure allowed Jason to record video mere feet from the eruption. The lava spewing from the West Mata volcano is also thought to be an extremely rare, and very hot, form of lava previously only found on extinct volcanoes.

You can see videos of the eruption after the jump.

Jason is operated by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and the work was funded by NOAA and NSF.

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A couple of weeks ago we reported on Jon Hyland’s NanoSeeker Micro AUV project. Today Jon posted some more details on his project and he seems to be making rapid progress. With the help of a rapid prototype machine there are now working prototypes of the vehicles in the water. The NanoSeeker has a “3-axis, solid state compass, with an integrated 3-axis accelerometer”, a bluetooth debugging interface, and runs on a ATmega328 microcontroller. The vehicle is steered via two control surfaces controlled by a Solarbotics GM15 pager gearmotor. Oh, and don’t forget that the vehicle is 6 inches long and 1.25 inches in diameter!

Video of the prototype after the jump.

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Cornell University has won the 12th annual AUVSI Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition. And, according to Cornell’s tweet, second place goes to University of Victoria and 3rd to University of Rhode Island. Interestingly, these three teams weren’t even in the top 5 of last year’s compeitors (pdf), so they seem to have put in a lot of work. You can read all of the team’s technical papers here. Cornell’s, U.Vic. and URI’s papers will make interesting reading for all the 2010 competitors with an ax to grind.

Congratulations to Nova, Aerius, and Ram-Boat ’09 and all the engineers behind them on a job well done.

After the jump are two recap videos from the 1st and 2nd days competition.

If you like this story, will you please Digg it? Thanks!

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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!

Here’s a list of the top posts of 2008. For your enjoyment.

1. Beetle Robot
2. Unmanned Systems Roadmap
3. Build Your Own Underwater ROV For $250
4. Update from Wall-E builder’s group
5. Pixar’s Latest Movie – Wall-E The Robot
6. LEGO Linear Actuator
7. 2008 Robot Christmas Gift Guide

A couple interesting submarine launched UAVs, one by Raytheon and another, VOLANS, built by a German company, are featured in this Register article. The Submarine Over the Horizon Organic Capabilities, or SOTHOC, built by Raytheon, is launched out of the waste disposal lock of a submarine. SOTHOC then decents to a preset depth where it rises to the surface and launches a unmanned flying vehicle to gather data. The UAV can relay the data back to the sub via antenna, or if the sub whishes to remain anonymous the data can be relayed via satellite back to the US. This system allows a submarine to lauch an UAV while remaining submerged, in contrast to the VOLANS, which launches via a mast attached to the robot. The VOLANS functions as a mobile periscope for the sub.

Pictured above is a group photo of all the teams competing in the 11th annual International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle competition. University of Maryland won the competition, unseating University of Florida from their 3 year winning streak. Congratulations to all the teams. The final standings for the top 8 teams are below. Pictured below is Maryland’s vehicle and a team photo.

Final Standings:

1. University of Maryland
2. University of Texas at Dallas
3. École de technologie supérieure
4. University of Florida
5. United States Naval Academy
6. University of Victoria
7. Cornell
8. Florida Atlantic University

Don’t forget that the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International’s 11th Annual International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition is taking place this weekend in San Diego, CA.

This year’s theme is “Underseas 11″ and will feature gambling themed tasks, such as grabbing a sack of cash from a “bank vault”, traversing an “air duct” (a floating PCV structure), and the like.

The competition is open to the public this Saturday and Sunday and is held at the U.S. Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare (SPAWAR) Systems Center’s Transducer Evaluation Center (TRANSDEC) pool located on Point Loma, San Diego. You can read the spectator FAQ (PDF) for more details.

25 teams from around the glob are registered for the competition, including my alma mater, NC State University. The teams have to construct a fully autonomous underwater vehicle that is capable of navigating, using machine vision, and acoustic navigation. It should be interesting (the competition is rather boring, since it’s underwater, but talking to the teams is fun). So, if you’re in the area, please go out and cheer them on. Send me some pictures if you do.

Update: The team from Cornell appears to be live-blogging the event.

Update 2: You can watch a live webcast of the finals here. It looks like the underwater video is being shot with an LBV from Seabotix.

Update 3: Here’s a list of the teams going into the finals.

Update 4: You can see the final standings here. Surprise ending!

Ah, back home to North Carolina where the tea is sweet (very sweet) and the humidity makes it feel 15 degrees hotter.

 As promised, I’m here to provide closure to NCSU‘s journey to San Diego. And, no, we didn’t place in the competition. We were so very close – one of the top contenders actually. We were able to demonstrate in practice all of the tasks, which, as far as I know, no other teams were able to do.

 So let me just give you blow by blow starting Saturday morning:

 

First Preliminary Run

Our robot has a network cable teather which allows us to recompile code and run it on-the-fly. We consulted with David Novak, the in-charge-man for the competition rules, and he assured us we could run with the teather as long as we stepped away from the computer once we started our run.

However, when we arrived at the platform, the chief judge told us "nothin’ doin’" and made us remove the cable and put in a blank puck (aluminum endcap where the cable origianlly entered the electronics tube).

This was a high stress situation and everyone stood up to it bravely, but unfortunately, the robot failed to run.

A heated altercation then followed. We tried, as courteously as possible, to get some sort of concession since we had been misinformed. Eventually they agreed to let us run again that evening at 6:00.
 
Much stress ensued …

Second (1.1?) Preliminary Run

At least we had another chance on Saturday. We buttoned up the robot. Brought it to the launch platform, lowered it into the water, and nothing happened. OpenCV kept crashing, so our visual starting device (an orange "key") wouldn’t work.

In a mad, heart-stopping, dash, Matt opened up the robot and reconnected the network cable for Sterling to put in a delayed start mechanism. In a flash, the robot was back together and in the water.

We bagan to count the seconds … slowly, slowly, our 5 minute timer ticked down and we waited for the robot to start.

Nothing happened. 

Heat-broken, we pulled the robot out once again, and prepared for a very long night.

 
Final Preliminary Run

We had stayed up all night working on the robot. Trouble shooting bugs and trying to install a wireless network card so we could wireless start Seawolf.

Finally, the 11th hour dawned and to our horror, we found out our thrusters wouldn’t work. Nothing. Zip. Matt rushed back to the hotel to get the spares. The spares didn’t help. Some thrusters would cut on. We’d power cycle and a different thruster would cut on. It was a nightmare. No rhyme. No reason. Utter confusion.

Eventually, we found a combination that worked. It was very touchy, but it worked. We tried it 4 times at our booth. Twice at the starting platform. And finally, once on the dock.

However, when we lowered the robot into the water. It once again refused to work. Seawolf got stage fright.

To add to our misery, at this same time our batteries failed. So, we hauled Seawolf out of the water and did a NASCAR breakdown and battery replacement of the robot. There were cameras and people all around us taking pictures in amazement. It was pretty spectacular. The whole process took about 3 minutes.

With just a few minutes to spare we once again tried to coax Seawolf into playing, but he refused, and simply cut on two thrusters

and

spiraled

down

into

the

depths …

Conclusion


It was all worth it. Sure, we’re horribly disappointed, but it was an amazing experience. Everyone loved the robot – the media (on live San Diego TV), visitors ("I saw your robot on TV!"), and the divers ("f***-it, I like Seawolf better!").



Great job University of Florida you had an awesome robot and deserved the title. But, enjoy it while it lasts, cause next year

NCSU will be king!

Well, it’s 10:21 AM. Our first preliminary run starts at 11:00 AM. As of now, two teams have made it through the gate, and two teams haven’t showed up. One team, I think the University of Florida, navigated to the acoustic pinger and surfaced.

We also have another run tomorrow morning at 10:00 AM.

The results of these runs will determine whether we make it into the finals. We can navigate through the gate just fine. We spent all night hashing out the acoustic navigation software and we’re very confident that we can find the pinger and hopefully surface. If the robot doesn’t surface we set a timeout, because we know it finds the pinger but it has trouble surfacing.

After the pinger we’re going for the pipeline then the docking station. We chose to do the docking station last because 1) it has the least amount of points associated with it and 2) there’s a chance we’ll start following the sun and run in to the wall – which would be a disqualification.


Mike, Erin, and Jim


Transdec

It’s almost 9PST and I’m standing here blogging pool (amazingly large dive tank?)-side. Our arrival time was pushed up one hour this morning to get teams here in time for some live coverage from a local San Diego TV station.
…
Yeh, definitely got up at 5 AM.

Mike and I walked into the command/al queda room to find no robot. Mike said, "surely it isn’t in the pool now … " Sure enough, Frankie/Jim/Sterling were at the pool, and had been all night testing.

We buttoned up the robot and got onsite around 6 AM. The TV guy wanted to show our robot on TV so we hoisted it up in the air and were on live TV. We’re trying to get a copy of the tape. Your’s truely was the PR guy and did an awesome job pimping the robot to an uneducated CA audience.

HOWEVER, After about 2 hrs, this guy is getting aggravating. He keeps wanting to show the robot during commercial breaks and it’s interrupting our testing.

We’ve got a TON of work to do and need as much uninterrupted time as possible.

Oh, and as of 9AM  MIT and Cornell haven’t showed up today. They’ve won first places in previous years, so if they’re having trouble this could be a big break for the rest of us.

I’ve got a lot of audio but it’s taking a long time to edit. Fingers crossed I’ll have the first podcast up this afternoon. In the mean time, here’s a few pictures from the first day of practice.


shot of our setup


Here’s Seawolf being hoisted into the water for the first time.


Behold the beauty! Mike spent an hour and a half putting those stickers on. He’s OCD about it.

Well, I lied. Apparently I do have my camera cable. So, here’s some pictures from earlier today.

When the sun goes down, it gets pretty chilly here. Matt was freezing his butt off in the pool for a couple of hours, and now Jim is in the pool.


NCSU


University of Florida


Montreal

Day one of the NCSU Underwater Robotics team’s trip to San Diego for the International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition has come and gone. We arrived in San Diego around 10 AM after some miserable flight time. We waited around in the airport for about 2 hours for our luggage and a proper sized vehicle.

We set up one of our hotel rooms "al queda" style with all the equipment and the robot. Frankie (team captain) and Sterling (software god) are staying in that room and started setting everything up while myself (controls guru, etc.), Mike (wiring master), and Jim (genius Indian) went off to buy stuff.

San Diego drivers are crazy and we spent a very long time looking for a Target/Walmart and  Lowes. Six or so hours later we finally arrived back to mission headquarters.

One of the problems we’ve been having is that our dropper box is interfereing with our DVL (Doppler Velocity Log, aka extremely expensive magic box). Thanks to the genius of Ken Boone we bought ourselves a can of pineapples, ate the pineapples, and ghetto rigged the can around our dropper box to magnetically shield it from the DVL.

We spent the evening half dead from lack of sleeping while working on trying to get our electronics tube back together.

Tomorrow we go to the introduction meeting for the contest.
I’ll be posting episode one of the podcast sometime today, so stay tuned for that.