The robot technicians’ team of the Russian Far-Eastern Federal University took the 3rd place at the 16th International Uncontrolled Underwater Vehicle Competition (RoboSub 2013).

The competition finished on July 28 in San Diego, USA. 30 teams of the world’s leading technical academic institutions from USA, India, Israel, Sweden, Canada, Spain, China, Turkey and Singapore took part in the competition.

The following students, graduate students and young scientists joined the FEFU team: Andrey Kushnerik, Vladislav Goy, Nikolay Sergiyenko, Yaroslav Volkov, Igor Tufanov, Fyodor Dubrovin, Andrey Sakharov, Maksim Sporyshev, Gleb Shestopalov, Andrey Gatchenko, Mark Gulyayev, and Anton Tolstonogov. Alexander Shcherbatyuk, professor of FEFU, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, was the team’s instructor.

The competition’s task for the robots created by the young scientists was to independently accomplish some specific underwater missions without contact with the scientists ashore.

The RoboSub competition is a great site to demonstrate the state-of-the-art development and to implement it into production practice of companies from diverse countries. The competition’s significance is stressed by the fact that the RoboSub’s official sponsor is the Office of Naval Research within the United States Department of the Navy . Besides, the competition’s sponsors include the major world companies for oil and gas production, underwater utility lines and maritime technologies.

It will be recalled that in 2012, the FEFU team made its debut at the International Uncontrolled Underwater Vehicle Competition. The fellows made significant progress at once and was among the top five participants. It was already at the next competition in March 2013 that the robot technicians from the Far-Eastern Federal University were the winners of Open Championship of Asia in Signapore.

Press Release, July 31, 2013