Monday, August 03, 2009
CUAUV Team Wins 12th International Competition

The Cornell Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Team (CUAUV) won the 12th International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition held at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego. The competition involves the autonomous completion of a series of tasks such as pipe following, homing in on an acoustic signal, visual recognition of targets, dropping markers on the targets, firing torpedos through a target, retrieval of a briefcase and surfacing within a given zone. The team, led by ME senior Erin Fischell, is entirely undergraduate, with students representing 13 majors and 3 colleges. The Cornell team has now won the design and implementation award at the competition for 6 years running, and has made it to the finals 9 out of the 10 years it has competed. A new vehicle is built each year. This year's vehicle, Nova, completed every element of the competition - which is a very significant achievement in itself - to win (first time since 2003) is icing on the cake. Congratulations to our CUAUV team!