The Singapore Autonomous Underwater VehicleChallenge (SAUVC) : An Effort to Engage and

Expose Young Engineers to Challenges ofUnderwater Robotics

Venugopalan PallayilMandar ChitreBharath KalyanShailabh Suman

and Teong Beng KoayAcoustic Research Lab

Tropical Marine Science InstituteNational University of Singapore

12A Kent Ridge RoadSingapore-119222

Email: venu@arl.nus.edu.sg

Chin Swee ChiaTeo Hoe Eng Ken

and Cheah Siang LimDSO National Laboratories

14 Science Park DriveSingapore-118226

Tawfiq TaherSMART

1 create Way, # 09-03Enterprise WingSingapore-138062

Abstract—The Singapore Autonomous Underwater VehicleChallenge, dubbed as SAUVC, is an effort by the IEEE OceanicEngineering Society Singapore Chapter to engage and exposethe tertiary students to the challenges of AUV design. The pro-gramme was started in 2013 and was originally intended to createawareness among the local students on the importance of under-water robotics and its relevance to Singapore. However, it grewinto an international competition from its very inception as itwas felt that opening up the competition at an international levelwould add diversity to the design approaches. The competitionis designed in a swimming pool format and requires the AUV toperform a series of tasks, which requires a good understanding ofsensors and algorithms to navigate underwater. The teams werealso required to present their designs and share their experiencesto an invited audience. To increase the level participation at theinternational level the organising committee decided not to chargeany registration fee. To boost local participation, the teams fromSingapore were provided limited financial support to build theirAUVs initially. Also the organising committee explored with therespective institutions on the possibility of awarding credits tothe team members. So far we have conducted three competitionsand it is a matter of pride for the organisers that the programmehas been successful in nurturing a local team from NationalUniversity of Singapore, which went on to perform well in theAUVSI Robosub competition and rise to 5th position in its secondyear of participation. The programme has been well supported bythe National University of Singapore, DSO National Laboratoriesand the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research & Technology. Ithas also been able to attract many sponsors including IEEEOceanic Engineering Society, Office of Naval Research (Global)and both local and international industrial partners.

I. INTRODUCTION

Informal learning is always fun, exciting and probably mostrewarding experience, especially when carried out by a groupindividuals with different skills. Participating in challenges like

autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) competitions providean opportunity for the students to experience the value ofsuch informal learning beyond the classroom knowledge asthere is no formal course on AUV being taught in many ofthe universities. The first international AUV competition wasinitiated by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle SystemsInternational (AUVSI) Foundation in US in the year 1998 [1].The competition named Robosub, and co-sponsored by Officeof Naval Research is now a widely contested competitionwith over 30 international student teams participating everyyear. In 2006 a similar competition was initiated in Europenamely Student Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Challenge,Europe (SAUC-E) [2]. Most student teams participating inthis competetion are from Europe and the competition iswell supported by the Centre for Maritime Research andExperimentation (CMRE). In 2011, National Institution ofOcean Technology (NIOT), India started a national level AUVcompetition, viz., Student Autonomous underwater Vehicle(SAVe) competition in collaboration with their local chapter ofIEEE Oceanographic Engineering Society (OES) and OceanSociety of India. The competition is open to only student teamsfrom different parts of India.

The IEEE OES Singapore chapter started the SingaporeAUV Challenge in 2013 with a view to expose local studentsto the engineering challenges of AUV design and also todevelop an appreciation for the AUV related technologies.However realising the fact that there is no Asian equivalentof Robosub or SAUC-E, the advisory committee and theorganising committee decided to make it as an internationalchallenge, specifically for the students in the Asia Pacificregion. The organisers have been successful in organising three

competitions so far with some success. In this paper we carryout an assessement on the success of this competition withregard to its objectives by analysing team participation, teamfeedback, sponsorship support and collaborations as well asthe volunteer support received. We also look at the difficultiesfaced by the organising committee during the course of theseevents and how we managed to overcome them. Finally wetake a look at the future of this event and possibilities jointlyorganising an event at the Asia Pacific level.

II. OBJECTIVES OF THE SAUVC

The organising committee of the SAUVC is largely consti-tuted by IEEE OES local chapter members who are also stafffrom National University of Singapore (NUS), DSO NationalLaboratories as well as the Singapore-MIT Alliance Research& Technology (SMART). These institutions are actively en-gaged in developing or using autonomous underwater vehiclesand platforms for their research. The AUVs have becomean integral part of many ocean going research projects andthere are many commercial off the shelf solutions available.However, most of these AUVs are ‘buy and use’type and alsovery expensive. There is little or no flexibility to adapt themas a research platform to test out some ‘own ideas’. Thisnecessesitates the need for these institutions to build theirown AUVs and to engage qualified researchers for the job.None of the tertiary institutions in Singapore offer a coursein underwater technologies in relation to AUVs or acousticsand hence the students have no appreciation or awareness ofrelated technologies and system engineering. Therefore it wasfelt that organising an event like the SAUVC would generateenough interest in the local tertiary students and making theevent international would provide an opportunity to exchangeideas with students from overseas institutions some of whomare already participating in the events like Robosub, SAUC-Eand SAVe etc. Thus the SAUVC was born. The following arethe key objectives of the SAUVC

• To provide opportunities for students to experience thechallenges of system engineering

• To develop an appreciation, understanding and skills inAUV related technologies

• To expose students to AUV technologies and increaseawareness and interest in careers related to marinerobotics

• To provide learning ground for students with an interestin other international AUV competitions

Apart from the main objectives listed above, the organisingcommittee recommended that the teams may also be given anopportunity to present their designs through a 20min presen-tation. This presentation was scheduled prior to the qualifyinground. A 30min talk by a leading researcher in the fieldof autonomous platforms was also scheduled to provide thestudents an update on the current status of relevant underwaterautonomous platform technologies and their applications.

A. Organising committee, Advisory Committee and Volunteers

The orgnaising committee comprised mostly IEEE OESlocal chapter members and volunteers from some institutionsin Singapore. An advisory committee comprising of facultymembers from different tertiary institutions in Singapore wasalso formed. Most of these members were part of the or-ganising committee that ran land-based robotic competitionsheld in Singapore and was helpful in formulating teams fromtheir respective institutions. Some of them also served in theadvisory role for their respective student teams. This approachwas to ensure reasonably good level of participation from localinstitutions. It was also at the recommendation of advisorycommittee that the event went international, though the orginalplan was to have a local competition and to develop localtalents in the field of underwater robotics.

IEEE OES local chapter has been closely following theinternational competitions held elsewhere. They have been inregular contact with other IEEE OES chapters in the regionwho were running similar competitions. The local chapter alsodeveloped contacts with potential teams who were participat-ing in those competitions. This we felt that would give anedge to a successful competition, from a participation level, iforganised under IEEE OES Singapore chapter. Moreover IEEEOES, the main society based in US, extended full supportfor the competition. Similarly, the local chapter has beenorganising an industrial workshop where some of the localindustries in the underwater equipment related business used toparticipate. This opened up an opportunity to work with themon the AUV competition as well through their sponsorshipsand support. This relationship has been working very well sofar in our last three competitions. Different sub-committeeswere formed from the members of organising committee tohelp and execute various organisational tasks. The overallcommittee was headed by a Chairman with a Co-Chairmanin the supporting role. The main sub-committees were theLogistics Committee who were in charge of finding a suitablevenue for the event and also make arrangements for its runningover the three days. A Sponsorship Committee to bring inmoney to meet all the expenses asociated with the competitionwas also formed. This was important because the partici-pants are not charged any registration fee (to encourage theirparticipation) and hence the only way to meet all the eventexpenses such as pool and function room rentals, lunch forall the participants and officials over three days, prize moneyand organisation of presentation ceremony, registration kit forthe participants and all other miscellaneous costs were to berealised through sponsorships and cash support. A studentliaison sub-committee was formed to work with the teams andto provide all the technical and administrative helps required.This committee has been working closely with the institutionsand teams to ensure maximum participation. The Treasurerlooks after all the income and expenditures to make sure ourcommitments do not over run the budget and the Secretary ofthe Committee was responsible for making meeting notes andcirculating them among the committee members. Finally, we

also have a Webmaster who is responsible for updating andmaintaining the website with relevant contents.

It was not possible to run the event with the OrganisationCommittee members alone. We therefore engaged many vol-unteers who have been providing their whole-hearted supportfor the event. Volunteers provided dive support to set up propsfor the competition and underwater cameras in the pool. Theunderwater cameras were used to record the tasks the AUVsperformed underwater, which was linked to a monitor on thesurface for public viewing. The registration of participants inthe day of the events was also handled by volunteers. Some ofthem were also been entrusted with the task of monitoring thecomplaince to the safety regulations by the participants andpublic.

III. EVENT ORGANISATION

The SAUVC event were organised over three days. Thefirst day was used primarily for setting up the props in theswimming pool and also give some time for the teams topractice. The second day was largely used for presentationby the team leaders on their AUV followed by qualifyingrounds in the pool. We also organised a talk on AUV/ROVtechnologies prior to the team presentation. The third day wasused mainly for the final rounds of competition. In the eveningof the third day a prize giving ceremony along with a BBQdinner was also organised.

Though there was no prior announcement made on theawards to be given to the winners, the team that won thefirst position was awarded S$5000 while the second andthird placed teams bagged S$3000 and S$2000 respectively.Consolation prizes ranging from S$500 to S$1000 were alsogiven to teams who cleared the qualifying rounds.

A. Venue

Unlike the Robosub and SUAC-E, where the competitionswere organised either in a open air diver’s training pool orharbour, the SAUVC was organised in a swimming pool due tolack of similar facilities in Singapore. Moreover the seawaterconditions in Singapore was not conducive for tracking theprogress of AUV mission with video camera due to very poorvisibility in the murky waters. Heavy vessel traffic and busyports forced us to keep the operations away from sea.

Though there are a number of public swimming poolsin Singapore, getting one for conducting an event like theSAUVC was not possible as it might incovenience the public.Hence we tried to look at swimming pools within the academicinstitutions. As this is an outreach activity for students, ourthniking was that working with an educational institutionwould provide more visibility to the competition among thestudents. The first and third competitions were held in theolympic size swimming pool at the Singapore Polytechnicand the second event was held at the Nanyang TechnologicalUniversity’s swimming complex. Figure 1 shows participantsand viewers anxhiously waiting for the AUV to surface at thedesignated zone during the SAUVC 2015 competition.

Fig. 1. Happy and anxious moments at the SAUVC competition

B. Event Publicity

A website www.sauvc.org [3]has been setup to showcase theevent details, inluding photos and videos of past competitions.The website is a also linked to a Facebook page which isbelieved to be a more engaging platform for the students ofcurrent generation. The students can post progress and querieson the Facebook page and the same will be attended to by oneof the committee members. We have also published the reportson the competition in the IEEE OES newsletter, BEACON andalso advertised one of the recent competitions. Publicity wasalso given through other IEEE OES chapters in the region.The organisation of the competition was also posted on theIEEE Singapore Section website. Apart from these, personalcontacts in various institutions were also used to spread theword about the competition.

C. Sponsorship

The competition was held without any registration fee forthe participants. Hence all the expenses related to running ofthe competition had to be met through sponsorship support.The successful organisation of the SAUVC event would nothave been possible without sponsorship support from vari-ous organisations listed here. The Office of Naval Research(Global) was one of the major supporter of the event. IEEEOES was another major supporter and so was NUS and Centrefor Sensing and Monitoring (CENSAM), SMART, Singapore.The organisers, IEEE OES local chapter, also supported theevent financially. There was excellent support from Industry.Atlas Elektronik GmbH, Germany; Thales Solutions Asia,Singapore; EvoLogics Pte, Germany, Liquid Robotics werethe major supportes of the event from the industry. Localcompanies like ST Electronics, National Instruments, IXBLUESingapore, Sea and Land Technologies and Lita Ocean PteLtd were the other supporters of the event. The SingaporePolytechnic provided the swimming pool free of cost for ourlast competition which helped to save some money.

D. Competition Format, Tasks and Rules of Competition

The design of the tasks had to consider the constraintsimposed by the swimming pool environment. Morever the

organising committee felt that too complex a task initiallywould affect the participation level as it might scare awaysome of the beginners. Even so, most of the tasks requiredto be completed by the AUV were still challenging in termsof the design of the vehicle and its sensing and navigationalcapability requirements. Some of the tasks and rules of com-petition have been revised as we moved from one event to thenext based on the inputs from participating teams as well assome of our sponsors.

In the sections that follow, we look at the details of thethree competitions held in the years 2013, 2014 and 2015respectively.

IV. THE SAUVC 2013

The SAUVC 2013 competition was open to teams consistingof up to five full-time students registered with any university orPolytechnic with a mentor from their department or faculty. Inorder to monitor the progress, the local teams were required togive a presentation to the organising committee. The overseasteams were required to upload their presentation on to a web-site setup for the same and the committee provided feedbackto the teams which helped them to fine tune their designs.

To generate interest in local teams, financial support upto S$3000 was made available through a local sponsor. Thismoney was disbursed in two instalments against the progressmade by the teams which was assessed based on their presenta-tion to the organising committee. As it was felt that this wouldnot be a sustainable model, the support was not provided forfuture competitions.

For the SAUVC 2013 competition the AUV was requiredto start from a designated starting point, pass through a gatewithout touching any part of it and then drop a ball by bumpingagainst a flare carrying a golf ball before finally surfacingat a location marked on the surface of the pool as shownin Figure 2. To aid the navigation by AUV, a black lineconnecting the different task points was provided, except forthe last link from the flare to the surfacing zone. Being aswimming pool based competition and also to be fair withteams from different backgrounds, certain constraints on theAUV specifications were imposed for this competition. Theseare listed below.

1) The vehicle should be autonomous and no communica-tion with the vehicle is permitted during the mission

2) The dimension of the vehicle shall not exceed0.5mtimes0.5mtimes0.7m in the fully extended state

3) The vehicle should have self contained power source andit should not exceed 24VDC

4) Internal combustion engines and compressors are notallowed

5) The cost of the commercial parts, including software, forthe vehicle should not exceed S$10K

The purpose of these constraints was to build an AUV thatwould do just the tasks defined for it and to prevent anyover design. Especially the last constraint on the cost of thecommercial parts used in the vehicle was intented to encourage

Fig. 2. Graphic showing the tasks for the AUV for the SAUVC 2013competition

students to come out with their own designs rather than buyand use COTS solutions.

16 teams registered for the SAUVC 2013 event initially andof which 10 teams had presented their designs during the checkpoint. However, only 7 teams turned up for the event and fiveof them were local teams. The two overseas teams were fromRussia and India. Only the Russian team from Far EasternFederal University (FEFU) was able to complete all the tasksand bagged the first prize. The team with their AUV is shownin Figure 3. The team from National University of Singaporewas a close second. Though they managed to complete mostof the tasks, the last task of surfacing within the specified zonecould not be achieved. Most of the other teams were only ableto clear the qualifying rounds, which included a straight 10mrun, and some team’s AUVs managed to pass through the gate,the first task of the competition. Mr Jerry Carrol from IEEEOES was the Chief Guest for the function. He interacted withthe participants (Figure 4) and gave away the prizes to thewinners during the barbeque dinner.

Feedback from the participating teams was collected toknow how did they rate the organisation of the overall eventand also on what areas we need to improve.

V. THE SAUVC 2014

As the organisation of the SAUVC 2013 was largelysuccessful and the participants gave very encouraging feed-backs, the organising committee decided to go ahead with theSAUVC 2014 competition. In the SAUVC 2013 competitionmost of the navigational tasks by the AUV could be achievedby the use of optical sensors (cameras) and dead-reckoningfrom a knowledge of the geometry of the task field set up.An acoustic component was however added to the SAUVC2014 competition based on the feedback from some of thesponsors of the event, who were primaso that they can justifytheir support to the event. Two pingers of different frequencieswere added to the grid used to mark the surfacing zone so

Fig. 3. The team FEFU from Russia, who won the SAUVC 2013 competition,with their AUV

Fig. 4. The chief guest of the SAUVC 2013 event Mr Jerry Carrol interactingwith one of the teams

Fig. 5. The graphics showing the tasks for the SAUVC 2014 and 2015

that the teams can make use of the beamforming algorithmsin locating the pingers and thus navigate to the surfacing zone.Visual markers were reduced and eliminated so that the taskwas hard to achieve without acoustics. As the SAUVC wasalso intented as a feeder competition for international AUVchallenges like Robosub where the use of acoustic sensors isessential, it made sense to include such a component into thegame field. An additional task was also added to the gamefield, which required the AUV to drop a golf ball into a basinplaced on the floor of the pool and located between the gateand the flare. There was no line to follow after dropping theball into the basin. So navigation to the flare could be by deadreckoning and to the surfacing zone by acoustic localisation.As the surfacing zone was shifted between the competition, itwas difficult to use a dead reckoning to reach the zone. Thetask setup for the SAUVC 2014 is shown in Figure 5.

Another notable change in the event organisation was thatthe teams were required to pay a refundable registration fee ofS$500. In our 2013 competition some of the teams who hadregistered did not turn up and the committee was not informedearly enough. This has led to extra expenditure and wastageof food and other materials. It was felt that a returnableregistration fee would make the teams more responsible. Therewere 16 teams registered initially for the competition and 10of them paid the refundable registration fee. However, on thefinal day only four teams turned up. Some of the teams hadinformed us early enough that they are unable to come due tolack of funding support for their travel and they were givenback their regsitration fee. However, two overseas teams failedto inform us in advance and they had to forfeit their registrationfee. Out of the four teams who came for the competition, twowere from overseas (though different from those participated

Fig. 6. The students from St George High School, Canada giving theirpresenatation

in the previous competition; one from Canada and the otherfrom Malaysia). Three local teams who participated in the2013 competition did not put up any teams in the year 2014despite our constant encouragement and follow up with therelevant institutions. The teams gave a presentation of theirAUV design prior to the qualifying round (Figure 6)

The NUS team emerged as the winner and was the onlyteam to complete all the tasks.

A special talk on the AUV research at MBARI, USAwas given by the Senior Engineer and current IEEE OESTreasurer, Dr William J Kirkwood, who was also the IEEEOES representative and Chief Guest for the event. There wasa feedback session for the participants, which was recorded ona video, on different aspects of the competition such as whydo they want to participate in this competition, the challengesfaced, team work and whether they would be consideringtaking up underwater robotics as a career choice. Some aspectsof these feedback sessions are discussed later in this paper.

VI. THE SAUVC 2015

The organising committee and IEEE OES local chaptermembers were little worried about the low participation levelsat the SAUVC 2014 but came to the conclusion that this shouldnot be viewed as a failure and indicative of the bleak future forthe competition. The fact that ten teams paid the registrationfee was itself a proof of their interests and the low participationlevels were due to either lack of fund support for the teams ordue to last minute problems with their AUVs. Hence we wentahead with the decision to hold the SAUVC 2015 competition.We also decided to do away with the refundable registrationfee due to administrative difficulties.

The tasks for the SAUVC 2015 competition was kept as thesame as for the 2014 competition. The specifications of theAUV in relation to its weight and size were relaxed as someof the teams had built their AUVs to compete in the Robosubcompetition and to meet the execution of tasks therein requiredthem to build a bigger and heavier vehicle. It would be hardfor the teams to build different AUVs to meet the requirementsof different competitions and hence the committee revised thedimensional and weight requirements for the AUVs. However,

to encourage design challenges, bonus points were awarded toteams who can build smaller and lighter vehicle.

Fig. 7. Group photo of participants, organisers and volunteers during theSAUVC-2015

The SAUVC 2015 saw the biggest turnout since the com-petition was started. A Group photo of the teams, organisersand volunteers is shown in Figure 7.

About 20 teams originally registered and 9 teams finallymade it to the competition. Of these two teams were localwhile seven teams were from overseas. The overseas teamsconsisted of one team from Russia, three teams from India,one from China, one from Malaysia and one team from USA.All the teams presented their AUV designs and also shared thechallenges they faced while preparing for the competition. DrKirkwood, Senior Engineer from MBARI, USA came downfor the event for this year as well and he gave a talk on’Robots for in-situ Science - moving from ROVs to AUVs’(seeFigure 8). Dr Kirkwood is also the IEEE OES Treasurer andwas the Chief Guest for the function.

The team from National University of Singapore was thewinner of the SAUVC 2015 (Figure 9).

VII. THE SAUVC-A SUCCESS SOTRY?Though it is too early to evaluate the success of the SAUVC

compeition, as we have held only three competitions so far,it would still be useful to take a look at and assess itsperformance. In the following paragraphs we take a look atthe competition from different aspects such as participation

Fig. 8. Dr Bill Kirkwood giving a talk on AUV during SAUVC 2015. Hegave a talk during the SAUVC 2014 as well

Fig. 9. The SAUVC 2015 champions,team Bumblebee from NationalUniversity of Singapore. A team from NUS also won the SAUVC 2014competition

level, achievements, sponsorship support and also the studentfeedback to make an assessment on its success.

A. Participation Level

One of the main objectives of the competition was to engageas many student teams as possible in the SAUVC, specificallyfrom local tertiary institutions. Seven student teams partici-pated in the SAUVC 2013 competition, of which, five teamswere local and two teams were from overseas (one fromRussia and the other from India). Of the five local teams, fourteams were from the universities and one from polytechnic.The increased local participation level was possibly due tothe limited financial support provided to the local teams andalso being the first time such a competition is being held inSingapore, students were curious to explore.

In the SAUVC 2014 there were only four teams, two localteams and two overseas teams. This low participation level,though gave some worries for the organisers on the futureof this competition, was not due to the lack of interest fromthe teams as 10 teams had paid the refundable registrationfee. The main reason was the lack of funds for them totravel to Singapore and also to meet the expenses duringthe competition. This time the two overseas teams differentfrom the year before which demonstrated the reach of thecompetition at an international level.

In the SAUVC 2015 event the participation level wentup to 9 teams and of these 7 teams were overseas andrepresented by 5 countries, viz., India, Malaysia, Russia, Chinaand USA. This again demostrated the international reach ofthe competition. However the competition has been not ableto spur more interest in the local teams. This is something theorganisers would look more closely into and resolve for futurecompetitions

B. Achievements

One of the major achievements have been the formationof a local AUV team from National University of Singaporewhich went on to participate in the Robosub competition. Theexperience they gained through local competition has helped

to secure 7th position in the Robosub competition in 2013among 30 odd international teams and also win the best entryaward. The team went on to claim the 5th position in 2014Robosub competition and has been a regular participant of theSAUVC competition. Another achievement was that a coupleof young engineers from NUS, who have participated in the2013 SAUVC competition is pursuing a carrier in a local start-up company which manufactures underwater modems andautonomous surface vehicles.

The competition helped to get more members into theIEEE OES local chapter which runs the competition. We alsoknow that at least three other teams who contested in theSAUVC 2015 competition have signed up for the Robosub2015 competition. They all wanted to use the opportunity as alearning ground before they field their AUVs for the Robosubcompetition. So, in some way the SAUVC serves as a feedercompetition for international AUV challenges like Robosub.

We have received positive feedback from all the participantsso far and their desire to continue to participate. This is indeeda source of encouragement. There is also a request to runa AUV workshop for the teams, which we plan to take upfrom the next competition onwards. This is expected to providesome training ground specifically in the underwater acousticsto the team members.

C. Sponsorship Support

The successful organisation of any event involves moneyto meet various expenses associated with the running of theevent. The only way to generate this finance for the SAUVCwas through sponsorships as for our events we have not beencharging the students any registration fee. Though it washardwork to generate the required finances, it is a matterof satisfaction that many sponsors came forward to supportthe event and make it a success. During the first two eventssome sponsors were keen to do an exbhibition display theirunderwater robots and related products at the event venue sothat the students can see the level of technologies available inunderwater robotics.

D. Feedback from Teams

Feedback from the teams on the organisational mattersis the best way to gauge how successful was the SAUVCcompetition. A set of questions were given to the members ofthe teams asking for their valuable feedback on various aspectsof the competition such as the timing, duration, level of tasks,event venue, rules and regulations etc. They were also askedwhat they liked and did not like about the competition andprovide inputs towards improving the event performance. Theorganisers are happy that the feedback received so far wasvery positive and encouraging. Table I shows a summary ofsome of the questions asked and the responses received fromteam members.

VIII. CHALLENGES FACED AND RESOLUTIONS

There were three major challenges that the organisers facedduring the SAUVC events. The first one was having as many

TABLE IFEEDBACK FROM TEAM MEMBERS

Questions ResponsesHow did you find the organisationof the event

43% - Excellent57% - Good

How did you find the difficultyof AUV tasks

85% - Just right15% - Too difficult

How did you find the pace of theevent

85% - Just right15% - Too slow

Did you find the event provideda goodlearning experience for you

57% - Excellent43% - Good

Was it clear and easy for you tounderstand the rules and regulations

15% - Very clear85% - Clear, but neededsome clarifications

Was the timing convenient for you 85% - Very convenient15% - Clash with exams

What did you like about the event

Mixed responses

- Interactions with other teams- Excellent arrangements- Friendly organizers

What we could have done better

Mixed responses- Indoor swimming pool ascompetition venue- Rules were little confusing- Late confirmation onacceptance of team- Increase the complexityof the game

Would you participate or encourageothersto participate if the event isheld again

100% - Yes

teams as possible locally. It is evident from the previousparagraphs that though the participation level on an averagewas satisfactory, the local participation level in the last twocompetitions was far too low compared to the first competition.Though we encourged the institutions to give credits to thestudents who are taking part in the SAUVC Competition basedon their work involved or even accept some of the componentsof the AUV design as part of their final year project, still it didnot help to improve the participation. We have also tried towork with students in some local universities directly, but thatalso did not produce any desirable result. However, we feelthat there is an interest locally and internationally to participatein the SAUVC competition.

The second challenge faced was in finding a suitable venuefor the event. Singapore has many public swimming pools,but none of them could be sourced for the competition asits primary purpose is to serve the needs of the public andclosing the pool for 3 days for the competition may not bein the best interest of them. We then turned our attentionto educational institutions. This also made sense in a waythat we could showcase it as a student outreach programme.Even so it was not easy to get the swimming pool as this

was the first time ever a swimming is being used for such anactivity in Singapore and hence there were some reservationsas they feared it would damage the pool and also may lead tocontamination by chemicals. After long hard negotiations wewere able to convince the pool authorities and they openedup the pool. The first and third competitions were heldin the swimming pool of Singapore Polytechnic while thesecond event was held in the Nanyang Technology Universityswimming complex. Though we had to pay for renting thepool in the first two instances, during the last competition wemade the Singapore Polytechnic as a co-sponsor of the eventand they waived the fee. We may try and continue to operatealong this line for future competitions as well.

IX. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE PLANS

The Singapore Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Challengehas completed three successful events so far. It has providedan avenue for many international student teams to showcasetheir underwater robotic skills as part of a informal learning.The tasks designed for the competition has been challengingfrom all aspects of AUV design. The participation levelswere satisfactory and the feedbacks received were very good.The event has contributed in the developement of a localAUV team which continue to participate and win accoladesin other international competitions. It is our assessement thatthe SAUVC competition has been a great learning ground fortertiary students, both local and international, in understandingthe challenges of AUV design and algorithms for navigationand tracking. As there is no equivalent of Robosub andSAUC-E in the Asia region we believe that this competitionwould continue to attract international student teams from theAsia Pacific region. The future competitions would continueto engage more students and also conduct workshops forthe students in underwater acoustics. We plan to includesenior researchers from different organisations to share theirunderwater robot experience with the students and also teachthem relevant skills. We are also considering to organise thisevent with more participation and support from other IEEEOES chapters in the region.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors would like to thank all the participants andsponsors for supporting the event. The support provided bythe volunteers, especially Mr Manu Ignatius and Ms ManjuVenugopal for the dive operations in the pool and photographyand Mr Chimay Pandharkar and Mr Shanmugham MPL forjudging, is greatly acknowledged. Special thanks to Mr HaroldTay who was also a committee member for publicity and alsoworked with student teams as a liaison and Ms Jolyn Tan forpublicity. Our acknowledgements are also due to Mr ChouKok Loong, Mr Boon Jiasheng, Mr Alvin Ng Jun Hao andMr Ng Zhan Ke for supporting the logistics operations. Wealso would like to thank Singapore Polytechnic and NanyangTechnological University for releasing their swimming poolsfor holding the event.

REFERENCES

[1] www.auvsifoundation.org[2] www.sauc-europe.org[3] www.sauvc.org