Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

Team SONIA is proud to announce that we renewed our partnership with 8D Technologies.

We want to thank 8D Technologies for their precious help.

Team SONIA is proud to announce a new partnership with SBG Systems.

They sponsored us our new aided inertial navigation and orientation sensor at a discount price. This new sensor include an on board real time Extended Kalman Filter that will fuse inertial data with our Doppler Velocity Log. This upgrade will greatly improve our navigation system.

We want to thank SBG Systems for their precious help.

Team SONIA is proud to announce a new partnership with Tritech International Limited.

They sponsored us our new mechanical sector scanning sonar at a discount price.

We want to thank Tritech for their precious help.

Team SONIA is proud to announce that we renewed our partnership with Esterline CMC Electronics.

We want to thank Esterline for their precious help.

The team woke up at around 8:00am for a practice run at 10:30am. We headed to Transdec at an unusual late time given the fact that we were up every day of the competition at 5:15am.

Once on site, the team started to prepare for its first and only test before the final run. During that test, we tried to achieve our final run. Unfortunately, it did not go so well. We had all sorts of small problems. We manage to fix all of them, but we were hoping nothing would go wrong for the final. We completed the gate, one buoy, the lover’s lane, drop one correct marker and the other drop the second marker on the edge of the correct bin. After that we started to navigate toward the pinger but it did not work. Strangely, we had to adjust the settings of our hydrophone to hear the pinger even though they worked all week long. With the correct settings found, we tried to grab the obstacle but it did not work, the vehicle was not aligning correctly. We asked the diver to bring it back to the dock to start over but unfortunately our practice time was up.

At around noon, Dave and the divers started to move around the obstacle course. The final course was very different after they were done. All the obstacles were moved to a different location, most of the angles between each obstacle were also modified. Even the bins were moved to a different location. The team analyzed the course and started to modify the mission of the vehicle.

The first team up was Cornell, they had very little time to analyze the course and went into the water very quickly. Unfortunately for them, the lighting conditions were terrible. The clouds kept changing and the sun would come and go during their run, making it very hard for the vision algorithm to work. They had a lot of problem to complete the buoy obstacle and decided to stop and start over. They manage to complete the gate, hit the green buoy, looked for the bins but timed out, headed toward the pinger, grabbed the vase, transported it to the next pinger, surfaced and released the vase. All in all, they had a very solid run, but not up to their expectations.

Once the team saw Cornell having all those problems with the buoys, they decided to go for safety and only hit the orange one. This would in theory allow the vehicle to have more time for the other obstacles. NC State and Reykjavik were next. Sadly, we were too busy preparing the vehicle and did not really saw what they manage to achieve. After about an hour that looked like ten minutes, it was our time to compete.

After a dry test to make sure everything was in order, the team brought the vehicle to the crane where it was gently lowered into water. The software team made a last quick check to make sure everything was still in order and we were ready to go. The team asked the diver to engage the mission switch. Quickly, the judges asked us to remove it and wait for our introduction video to finish, the team was really ready to compete. After a minute that looked like ten, we finally engage the vehicle’s mission switch. The submarine quickly cleared the gate and aligned to see the buoys. It rapidly found the orange one and touched it in no time. The vehicle passed over the buoys and started to look for the lover’s lane. It aligned on it and cleared it with almost no hesitation. At that point, we were amazed. The vehicle had never completed those obstacles in such a short time. The vehicle navigated toward the bins and started a search pattern to find them. Once over the bins, the vehicle aligned on them and started to navigate the bins to find the correct one. The vehicle managed to drop in the bin with a small O and a big X (the target were small O and small X). Once this was completed, the vehicle navigated toward the pinger. It quickly found it and aligned on the vase and surfaced to secure the pinger points. It went back into the water and started to align on the vase to grab it. After two bad attempts, the vehicle finally grabbed the vase, brought it to surface and successfully released it. Our run was over, the vehicle just completed its best run of the entire week, the entire team was ecstatic. The submarine completed all the obstacles that were in our plan. This was the run of our dreams, the run we had been planning for since we received the rules of the competition. Our team did not attempt the torpedo task and the transportation task for several reasons. These tasks were risky and time consuming, the competition is only 15 minutes and we knew the rest of the course could take several minutes. At that point we decided to focus on the other obstacles first, make sure these would worked perfectly and then maybe work on it. This choice ended up being one of the best decisions we made. After the run was over, the long wait until the award dinner started. At that point, all we could do was speculate on the points each team managed to acquire.

A couple of hours later, the dinner finally started. People from AUVSI and ONR made several announcements and started to announce the results. First, all the judges awards were announced.

• Mayor's Cup for Community Outreach: Carl Hayden High School (awarded $1,000)
• Second Chance Award: University of Central Florida (awarded $1,000)
• Outstanding Technical Mentorship: University of Maryland ($500)
• Hardware is Hard Award: Utah State University (awarded $500)
• Innovation on a Budget Award: Mesa College (awarded $500)
• Best Paper Award: Kyushu University (awarded $500)

After that, the final’s positioning was announced.

• In 6th place and a check for 500$, University of Rhode Island
• In 5th place and a check for 500$, University of Maryland
• In 4th place and a check for 2000$, Reykjavik University, at that point the crowed went crazy, Reykjavik did the impossible. Recover from a complete flood of their vehicle and manage to finish in 4th place!
• In 3rd place and a check for 3000$, University of Florida
• In 2nd place and a check for 4000$, Cornell University
• In 1st place and a check for 7000$, ETS Team SONIA!! Success! We finally made it, after 11 years of hard work.

The team receiving its big check!

If you missed the final, you can watch it here on demand. The entire final is available and you can see the run of all 8 teams that made it into the final.

Team SONIA would like to thank all the sponsors and the people who helped us during the year. Without the help of everyone, this would not have been possible. We would also like to thank all the teams for their hard work. You guys are the primary source of our motivation to continue and surpass ourselves. Thank you for the great year, and we hope the next one will be as good.

2011 competition team