NU Marine takes on The Maritime RobotX Challenge 2022

Late last year, the NU Marine autonomous boat engineering team travelled to Sydney to compete in the Maritime RobotX Challenge at the Sydney International Regatta Centre.

After a four-year hiatus, 20 teams from Australia, Chile, Japan, Peru, Singapore, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United States came together to compete and build international relationships.

The Maritime RobotX Challenge is a university-level competition designed to foster student interest in autonomous robotic systems operating in the maritime domain. It allows students to broaden their exposure to autonomy and robotic technologies by working in a hands-on capacity in developing a maritime system.

All teams were required to deploy their sensors and actuators, and develop their algorithms for a department-of-defence supplied, 16-foot, ‘WAM-V’ surface craft manufactured by Marine Advanced Robotics.

Meet (some of) the team

Isaac Smart attended the Maritime RobotX Challenge as part of the NU Marine team. His final year project (FYP) revolved around the creation of the propulsion system and control solution on the team boat.

“Within NU Marine, I had to complete my FYP with the desire to compete at competition, and my role continued with helping other aspects of the boat with this goal in mind.

“The propulsion system involved creating all hardware and electronics for the Torqeedo and T500 motors to create a fully actuated WAM-V.

“I was also tasked in creating the control solution to output the motors to follow the desired path,” Isaac said.

Isaac originally got involved with the NU Marine team after hearing about it through a friend.

“I wanted to join for my final year project for the chance to experience engineering on real hardware,” he said.

After multiple years of studying through Covid, Isaac really enjoyed his final year of study where he had the chance to do more in person.

“I had limited face to face experience at university, but NU Marine allowed me to spend a lot of time in the TA building around other undergraduate engineers.

“It was extremely unexpected to enjoy my final year of university so much. Although there was a lot of work, I gained so much more experience in engineering than I expected.

Spanning an entire week, the challenge involved several aspects of competition including practice and qualifying runs, design presentations and systems assessments, before culminating in semi-finals and finals in the last two days.

The first day involved unpacking the boat and setting up all the sensors and hardware on the WAM-V for autonomy.

“We had issues with achieving the initial safety test in the first two days as our system wasn’t ready for the radio interference from other teams,” Isaac said.

After this issue was solved, the team worked on achieving the dynamic safety test.

“The dynamic safety test involves driving the WAM-V through two sets of red and green buoys autonomously without any human intervention,” Isaac said.

It was a major goal for the team to complete this challenge fully autonomously.

“We finally achieved the dynamic safety test, and it was a huge win for the NU Marine team,” Isaac said.

In the final two days, the team completed two other tasks.

Follow the path was completed first which involved manoeuvring through multiple red and green buoys and avoiding hazards in the water.

Search and rescue involved circling around obstacles in the water and this was completed in the last session on the final day.

The results

“Competition was a surreal experience to witness our WAM-V perform.

“It was the accumulation of all the hours of engineering and problem solving that we undertook throughout the year.

“All our designs ended up being successful and all the difficult tasks we had prepared us massively for competition,” Isaac said.

Isaac says connecting with and learning from other teams was highly rewarding.

“It was interesting looking at other team's solutions to the same problems and we gained a lot of information to better our own WAM-V for future competitions,” he said.

For their efforts, the University of Newcastle NU Marine team won an Autonomy Challenge Award for completing a number of qualifying tasks. These included Situational Awareness, Follow the Path and Detect and Dock.

The team also won a Judges Special Award for Steadfast/Station Keeping.

Reflecting on the experience

When reflecting on his NU Marine experience, Isaac only wishes that he had joined the team earlier.

“NU Marine provided experiences and knowledge that are difficult to recreate in coursework.

“It was a great opportunity to gain experiences and qualities which employers seek. I was lucky enough to gain employment due to my participation in NU Marine,” he said.

NU Marine will be back to work in 2023 and beyond, working toward their next Maritime RobotX Challenge Competition.

Follow their journey