Engineering students from Japan’s Kyushu Institute

Engineering students from Japan’s Kyushu Institute of Technology prepare their Autonomous Underwater Vehicle “Darya,” for a practice run during the first day of the 14th Annual International RoboSub Competition held at Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific. The competition, hosted by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International and the U.S. Office of Naval Research challenges teams of student engineers from around the world to design and build Autonomous Underwater Vehicles to perform realistic missions in a simulated ocean environment. AUVs are important to the Navy because they perform a variety of missions including underwater mapping, mine location, and facilitating detailed scientific research. As the Navy's Information Dominance Systems Command, SPAWAR supports AUV development and strongly encourages all students to explore careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.