RoboSub is an annual competition held typically held in late July – early August. It encompasses schools from around the world, and tasks them with building fully autonomous underwater robots (AUV). These robots must perform a wide array of tasks, with the themes of said tasks changing annually. The wide variety of tasks include Gate, Buoy, Path, Bins, Torpedoes, and Octagon. For more information, visit the RoboSub website.
Gate is a task that requires an AUV to past through a gate. The gate is buoyant, just below the surface, and moored to the bottom. The robot is allowed to pass the gate at any depth as long as it goes through it.
Path is a task that requires an AUV to follow a set path determined by orange markers. A path is placed directly after each task and leads directly to the next task to help guide AUV in the right direction. The tasks that Path leads robots to is Buoy and Bins. The AUV is supposed to directly follow each path segment despite any section changes for full points.
Buoy is a task where two “buoys” are moored to the floor by two lines. One buoy has a certain design and the other buoy has another design. The AUV is tasked with touching a buoy.
Bins is a task that consists of two bins. One bin has an image of two objects and the other bin has another set of two images of different objects. One-third of the bins are covered and the AUV is tasked with dropping markers into either bin and lifting the covering off a bin.
Torpedoes is a task that consist of a target(s) with holes through its surface. One hole is large and the other is small. AUVs are tasked with shooting torpedoes through these holes, more points are awarded for shooting through the small hole compared to the large hole. In order to get to the torpedo task, an acoustic pinger is used by the robot as a guide.
Octagon is a 9 ft (2.7 m) diameter octagon that floats on the surface and an acoustic pinger that is located on the floor of the center of the octagon. The AUV is tasked with using acoustic waves to guide itself to the octagon and surface itself inside the octagon.
