MARCH 16, 2023 — Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Pacific will cohost the 26th international RoboSub competition in its Transducer Evaluation Center with the Office of Naval Research (ONR) July 31-Aug. 6.
At the underwater vehicle competition, students from across the globe will build robotic submarines designed to overcome simplified versions of challenges relevant to the autonomous underwater vehicle field.
“It’s good to have RoboSub back in San Diego,” said Travis Moscicki, who holds a doctorate in ocean engineering and is NIWC Pacific lead for RoboSub. “We missed this—getting to see students overcome the very same types of challenges our scientists work on every day. It really brings to life this idea of building tomorrow’s Navy. The next generation is here, and they’re bringing the leading edge to RoboSub and the Transducer Evaluation Center.”
NIWC Pacific and ONR volunteers will support students as they compete in underwater subject matter areas such as oceanographic exploration and mapping, detecting and manipulation of objects, and pipeline identification and tracking.
NIWC Pacific’s Transducer Evaluation Center pool contains six million gallons of water. Its design eliminates all extraneous man-made or natural biologic noises and permits precise control of surface and underwater conditions. From 2002 to 2019, NIWC Pacific hosted RoboSub there until the coronavirus pandemic, when organizers and students pivoted to virtual platforms.
RoboSub is a RoboNation program. Registration to compete is open until April 15. For more information on the event, or to register, visit https://robosub.org/programs/2023/. For more information about RoboNation, contact Janelle Curtis at jcurtis@robonation.org.
For more information on NIWC Pacific’s support of RoboSub, contact Darian Wilson, Corporate Communications and Public Affairs Director, at darian.l.wilson.civ@us.navy.mil or 619-553-2729.
RoboNation is a nonprofit organization on a mission to provide hands-on robotics education which empowers students to seek innovative solutions to global challenges. With a portfolio of nine educational programs, including K-12 and university level, RoboNation is cultivating the next generation of engineers, manufacturers, fabricators, programmers, and more. RoboNation participants are the highly-skilled workforce of tomorrow. Learn more at https://robonation.org.
NIWC Pacific’s mission: To conduct research, development, engineering, and support of integrated command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, cyber, and space systems across all warfighting domains, and to rapidly prototype, conduct test and evaluation, and provide acquisition, installation, and in-service engineering support. https://www.niwcpacific.navy.mil/
Story by Maison Piedfort
Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific