The Microtransat Challenge 2007 is a robotic competition where robotic sailboats are required to autonomously navigate themselves through choppy oceanic courses of virtual bouys and unpredictable winds. The competition is underway this week in the Irish Sea off Aberystwyth, where the robots are expected to traverse 2km and 10km courses.
According to the race details page, the following teams are likely contenders:
Confirmed Teams
- University of Wales, Aberystwyth (UWA), United Kingdom
- Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Ingénieurs de Constructions Aéronautiques (ENSICA), Tolouse, France
- The Austrian Association for Innovative Computer Science (INNOC), Vienna, Austria
- Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Unconfirmed Teams
- University of Porto, Department of Elect rical and Computer Engineering
- Ecole Centrale Paris, France
- Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Ingénieurs des Etudes des Techniques d’Armement (ENSIETA), Brest, France
The rules are simple. The robots must be autonomous, provide their own power, and traverse pre-defined GPS waypoints within 50 meters. There’s a spending cap of £40,000 but that’s pretty much it.
Although the rules are simple, the competition itself is hard. The first Microtransat Challenge was held in 2006 and three robots participated. It was so windy that the challenge was almost scrapped but the judges decided to loosen up the rules a little and let the contestants place their boats in any part of the water they wanted. The competition went on and broke the ice for what has since been an annual competition.
According to BBC News, this year’s race portends a 4,000 mile race across the Atlantic ocean in 2008.
Now this I gotta see!
