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The Team
CUAUV is entirely undergraduate-run, consisting of over 50 students spanning numerous academic disciplines. The team offers a holistic engineering experience developing cutting-edge technology; students control the entire design, manufacturing, testing, and revision cycle. As a seven-time RoboSub champion, CUAUV embodies a tradition of excellence and continuously pushes the envelope of autonomous underwater vehicle technology.
The Competition
CUAUV designs, builds, programs, and tests two completely autonomous underwater vehicles every year to compete in AUVSI’s international RoboSub Competition. In late July, we travel with our AUVs to San Diego, drop them in a recommissioned Navy testing pool, press the green button, and cheer them on as they navigate a complicated underwater obstacle course with no human intervention whatsoever: ramming buoys, dropping weighted darts on targets, firing torpedoes through differently colored rings, picking up PVC structures, and more.
The Vehicles
Our vehicles Polaris and Sirius are the culmination of CUAUV’s over 20 years of experience in designing, manufacturing, and competing with AUVs. Our team has worked diligently during the 2022-2023 academic year to complete both vehicles and are proud to showcase them in their current forms. Sirius is this year’s project, and will be completely assembled and constructed by competition this July.
Polaris is the sub built during the 2022-2023 academic year. The design was focused on control and modularity, maximizing stability and enclosure accessibility. For the first time, Polaris features a ZED stereo camera and a servo powered actuator system. Other improvements include an optimized and spacious rack, longer and in the field of view manipulator arm, and a control maximizing thruster.
Sirius is currently being developed, and features a rectangle-shaped “Lunch Box” design that deviates from the traditionally compact vehicles CUAUV produced in past years. For the first time, the mechanical team is utilizing underwater servos to actuate manipulators and the torpedo-droppers system. In addition, we integrated cam followers to actuate two torpedoes and two droppers independently with a single servo. The electronics rack will include a fan cooling system designed with computational fluid dynamics.
Polaris and Sirius are both designed to be able to complete a majority of the course on their own, we intend to have them both complete their own designated tasks so that they work as one cohesive unit.
Your contribution will allow the team to design, build, and fire a custom torpedo for use in competition!
Your donation will help us buy stock to machine an enclosure to hold one of our AUV's cameras!
Your contribution will go towards printing and populating one of our custom circuit boards! Patrons who donate $50 or more will also receive a personalized thank-you letter from our team!
Your contribution will help us buy and machine water-tight enclosures for batteries, a critical component that gives our sub power. Patrons who donate $100 or more will also receive a signed team photo!
Thrusters are how our vehicles move around in the water. Your contribution will allow CUAUV to buy a Blue Robotics thruster, making our vehicles even faster! Patrons who donate $250 or more will also receive a custom CUAUV laser-cut keychain.
With your contribution, we would like to name a part on Polaris or Sirius after you! Your name will go directly on our sub.
For donations of or over $1000, you’ll have the opportunity to drive our submarine remotely in one of our upcoming pool tests!