RoboBoat

RoboBoat is an annual research competition hosted by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) where teams design and construct autonomous surface vehicles (ASV) in order to compete in a series of tasks that mimic challenges faced by real-world autonomous vehicles. These included vision based autonomous docking, obstacle field navigation, and underwater acoustic signal localization.

I was a part of the Villanova University RoboBoat team for two years, the second of which I was the team leader. During my time with the team, I was mainly responsible for the computer vision aspects of the robot as well as performing system level programming and integration. This experience was highly impactful, directing much of my work into the field of vehicle autonomy. My team was fortunate enough to win the Best Navigation Award and 5th place overall in the 2013 and 2014 competitions.

Our team's entry to the competitions was a 4ft catamaran style vessel with differential steering, vehicle pose sensing, and a fused LIDAR/camera vision system.

Advisors: Dr. C. Nataraj, Dr. Garrett Clayton