Thales helps "Titanic" to 4th place in Robosub Competition
A team of Thales-sponsored engineers from Caltech outmaneuvered other teams from around the world to place fourth in this year's Robosub competition with an engine named Titanic.
Thales is the premier sponsor of the Caltech鈥檚 entrant in this year鈥檚 competition, which took place the week of July 20 in San Diego. The RoboSub competition, which is sponsored by Association for Unmanned Systems International (AUVSI) Foundation and the Office of Naval Research, challenges teams of collegiate engineers from around the world to design and build autonomous underwater vehicles to complete tasks including identifying and ramming a correctly coloured buoy; shooting a torpedo through the correct cutout; locating a SONAR pinger; turning a wheel and pulling a lever; and passing over a bar at a specified depth.
We're thrilled with the results. The competition was definitely a series of highs and lows. From making it through a critical electrical failure midweek to a thrilling Wild Card run that gave us our shot in the Finals, AUVSI RoboSub 2015 was a blast for the Caltech Robotics Team," said Jake Larson, a member of the team.
The Caltech鈥檚 entrant 鈥 named Titanic 鈥 featured a custom designed pressure hull with two stereoscopic cameras, a custom serial protocol and backplane, plug-and-play battery packs, and a custom shared memory system. The 30-member team includes mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and software engineering majors. This is the second year that Thales has sponsored the Caltech team. Last year鈥檚 entry came in 7th place, and was awarded the 鈥淏est New Entry鈥 prize.
For Thales, the association with this sort of competition and team provides great benefits including promoting science and technology education in the geographic areas (Southern California) and domain-specific areas (Naval equipment) in which the Group operates. Additionally, Thales executives have been and continue to interact with the students on the team, promoting brand awareness for the students at this prestigious university.