A weekend of aquatic competition yielded the University of Florida as the winner of the 2007 International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition, held at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center San Diego.
The competition was held July 13 to 15 in the echo-free TRANSDEC pool at the Navy research facility in Point Loma.
Of the 28 teams participating from around the world, the University of Rhode Island placed second, followed by the Ecole de Technologie Superieur from Montreal. The teams that followed in fourth place through seventh place were Cornell University, University of Central Florida, University of Southern California and the U.S. Naval Academy.
For the competition, student engineers designed vehicles that completed an underwater course without the aid of a remote control.
The course required precise maneuvers such as docking at an underwater station, marking a location and recovering an object.
The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center San Diego hosted the competition for the sixth year in a row.