SUGISAKAMASANORI

Journal of Advances in Artificial Life Robotics
Vol. 1(1); June (2020), pp. 12–16
ON LINE ISSN 2435-8061; ISSN-L 2435-8061
https://alife-robotics.org/jallr.html

Research Article

Robot competition for underwater technology researchers andstudents
Yuya Nishida1, Takashi Sonoda2, Takayuki Matsuo3, Shinsuke Yasukawa1, Masanori Sato4, Yasunori Takemura2,Kazuo Ishii1
Kyushu Institute of Technology, 2-4 Hibikino, Wakamatsu, Kitakyushu, Fukuoka 808-0196, Japan
Nishinippon Institute of Technology, 1-11 Aratsu, Kanda, Miyako, Fukuoka 800-0394, Japan3National Institute of Technology, Kitakyushu College, 5-20-1 Shii, Kokuraminami, Kitakyushu, Fukuoka 802-0985, Japan
4Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science, 536 Abamachi, Nagasaki 851-0193, Japan
12ARTICLE INFO
Article History
Received 06 December 2019
Accepted 04 August 2020
Keywords
Robot competition

ABSTRACTTo promote the research of oceanic engineering technology, an underwater robot competition has
been held since 2016. The seventh competition this year consists of AUV leagues, in which
vehicles developed by university teams automatically cruise in the field, and junior leagues thatparticipate in making underwater craft. This paper presents the competition regulations for theAUV and junior leagues and the results of the competition held in October 2019..

© 2022 The Author. Published by Sugisaka Masanori at ALife Robotics Corporation Ltd
This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

Autonomous underwater vehicle
Junior league

he Center for Socio-Robotic Synthesis of the Kyushu
Institute of Technology often hosts various tournaments
such as the Tomato Harvesting Robot Competition [1],[2]. In October 2019, the center also co-hosted the 7thUnderwater Robot Festival with the Japan Underwater
Robot Network where AUV and junior leagues
participated in the competition. This paper explains theregulations for the AUV and junior leagues and describes
the details of the competition that was held at the Aso
Sports Center in Kitakyushu on October 19th and 20th.

1. Introduction
To advance underwater technology, the non-profitorganization Japan Underwater Robot Network regularlyorganizes three annual competitions: the Underwater
Robot Convention, Underwater Robotics Competition,and Underwater Robot Festival. To focus on creating
new technology, the Underwater Robot Convention
consists of free-style leagues with original vehicles andan AI challenge league with vehicles implementing frontline learning algorithms. The purpose of the Underwater
Robotics Competition is to improve practical underwatertechnology in which the competition takes place in theocean. Finally, the objective of the Underwater Robot
Festival is to spread the concept of underwatertechnology and inspire an increase in underwater
research.

Corresponding author’s E-mail: ynishida@lsse.kyutech.ac.jp, ishii@brain.kyutech.ac.jp

12Fig. 1. Competition field for the AUV league

Fig. 2. Field items for the AUV league

The wet test evaluation was performed in the field asshown in Fig. 1, and the items that are shown in Fig. 2
were used to judge the AUV functions and technologies.
The participants were required to prepare the AUV
within five minutes after which the AUV had to perform
six underwater missions in ten minutes. In the firstmission, called Gate Pass, the AUV was required to pass
the green gate (max. 20 points) and then touch an orangeball for the second mission, called Buoy Touch (max. 80points). In the third mission, called Station Landing, theAUV was required to descend to the bottom where there
was a red station located near the buoy (max. 200 points)
and then drop a marker on the station for the DropMission (max. 20 points). After, the AUV had to search
for and touch the pinger in the yellow box (max. 100points) in the Pinger Investigation mission and thenreturn to the starting point through the gate in the Return
Back mission (max. 10 points).
The deployment technology evaluation assessed thedeployment method, which is the most important aspectof the actual AUV evaluation. When the AUV is placedin the water using a developed deploy device without
diver support, the team obtains points associated with thedeployment technology aspect. However, even with asuccessful AUV deployment, if an error occurred during
the competition or the deployment method was a hazard,
100 points were deducted from the score of the team.

2. Outline of the competition
2.1. Committee members
The committee members of the competition consistedof professors from the university near Kitakyushu with
Associate Prof. Nishida from the Kyushu Institute ofTechnology, the hosting university, as the executive
chairman. The AUV league was managed by AssociateProf. Sato from the Nagasaki Institute of Applied Scienceand Associate Prof. Sonoda from the Nishinippon
Institute of Technology. The regulations for the leagues
were defined by the executive committee based on lastyear’s regulations. Associate Prof. Matsuo from theNational Institute of Technology and Associate Prof.
Takemura from the Nishinippon Institute of Technology
managed the junior league and created the USV(Unmanned Surface Vehicle) platform for this league andprepared the lecture. Associate Prof. Yasukaw from theKyushu Institute of Technology created the home pagefor the competition.
2.2. AUV league regulations
Participants of the AUV event developed AUVs for thecompetition of the AUV league, of which the qualifier
was judged based on three evaluations that include
presentation (40 points total), wet test (430 points total),and deployment technology (30 points total). In thepresentation assessment, university professors evaluatedthe participants’ presentation with regard to stance,
speaking skills, explicitness, technology, ability toanswer the questions, and presentation time.

2.3. Junior league regulations
To acquire the basic knowledge and techniques required
for the development of an underwater vehicle, theuniversity professors in the committee gave lectures on13Fig. 5. AUVs that cruised in the competition field

Fig. 3. Waterproof platform for the junior league

largest number of people in the last few years, came tothe competition venue, making it full and lively. Inaddition, usually, the same university teams take part in
the AUV league every year due to the high costs
associated with developing an AUV to participate in theAUV league. However, this year, new teams such as
those representing the Hiroshima Institute of Technologyand Osaka Prefecture University were present. The sameschools for the junior league participated as usual, butmany teams entered the competition and attended thelectures enthusiastically.
Fig. 4. Presentation evaluation for the AUV league

3.2. AUV league results

mechanics and electrical circuit and programing to thejunior league participants. All teaching aids and tools forthe lectures were provided by the committee, andteaching assistants from the university diligently
supported the lectures. After all the lectures, theparticipants installed floaters and fins on the waterproof
platform shown in Fig. 3 to build the surface vehicle. The
platform has two thrusters for the heading and surge
controls and a microcomputer with a wireless module toenable the remote control of the thrusters, for which its
remote programming was developed by the participants
based on the knowledge obtained in the lectures. The
participants competed to navigate the surface vehicle andavoid obstacles.

Last year, teams played a round-robin tournament witha few qualifying participant teams. In the 7th competition,
the qualifying teams were separated into two leagues andthe final tournament was a round-robin tournament thatconsisted of the top four teams of last year with six
participant teams. The methods that were applied for thewet test evaluation, which were all diverse and reflected
the improvements in underwater robot technology, wereexplained by each team, as shown in Fig. 4, in addition
to describing their original AUV technology and wet test
strategy. The presenters were not able to answer thequestions from the judges in some cases, but mostpresenters thoroughly presented their projects to theaudience with the aid of their vehicle and movies. In thewet test evaluation, the AUVs of all teams cruised in thecompetition field, as shown in Fig. 5, where each teamcompeted fiercely. Because only students are involved in
improving the programming and the AUV system
without the help of researchers and professors, each year
in the past, the AUVs often encountered variousproblems. This year, however, most of the teams finetuned their AUVs for the competition without anyproblems. After all the evaluations, the winning team of

3. Competition results
3.1. Competition participants
Six university teams for the AUV league, 14 teams forthe junior league, and 40 people for the tour of thetournament joined the competition with 15 staff members
in addition to the committee members who managed thecompetition. A total of 130 people, which has been the14and the teams from Jyoto High School won second andthird place.
4. Conclusions
Although it was challenging to arrange for a venue inwhich the competition could be held even in rainy
weather, the Underwater Robot Festival was safely andsuccessfully held thanks to the generous cooperation of
Kitakyushu City and the facility staff. With the active
support of the committee members and assistant staff, thecompetition was smoothly organized and all participantsof the AUV and junior leagues enjoyed the competition.
We were able to gather many participants through thehelp of the committee members; however, there were few
spectators who observed the competition. Therefore, tobring together more spectators for the next year,
glamorous events will be added to the competition.

Fig. 6. The participants in the junior league during the lectures

the AUV league was from the Hiroshima Institute ofTechnology who developed a stable AUV rather than ahigh-tech AUV. The team from Kyushu Polytechnic
College won second place and the teams from theUniversity of Tokyo and the Tokyo Institute ofTechnology won third place.

Acknowledgments

3.3. Junior league results

This year, the Underwater Robot Festival was hosted
by the Center for Socio-Robotic Synthesis, Kyushu
Institute of Technology, Japan Underwater Robot
Network, Japan Society of Naval Architects and Ocean
Engineers, IEEE/OES Japan Chapter, Marine
Technology Society Japan Section, and Techno-Ocean
Network. Kitakyushu city and the Kitakyushu
Convention & Visitors Association supported thecompetition. The staff from Aso Sports Center in
Kitakyushu also cooperated in the competition. Theauthors would like to express deep gratitude to all of theabove.

Most of the participating students in the junior league
were not used to building robots and there were problems
such as electronic component failure, thruster failure, andsurface vehicle damage. However, all teams enjoyedmaking the surface vehicle and were able to complete thevehicle with the help of the professors and the assistantstaff, as shown in Fig. 6. Because the professors lectured
on the principles of waterproof structures and theoperational aspects of a surface vehicle, the vehicles of
all teams were able to cruise on the water surface without
encountering water leakages. After the lectures, thestudents actively participated in the competition withtheir vehicles, fine-tuning them each in their own way, asshown in Fig. 7. The champion of the junior league
competition held on the last day was the team from theNational Institute of Technology, Kitakyushu CollegeReferences
1. T. Matsuo, et al., Report of The 4th Tomato Harvesting
Robot Competition, Proc. of The International Conferenceon Artificial Life and Robotics, Beppu, 2019,
2. Center for Socio-Robotic Synthesis, Forestry Drones &Robots Competition (in Japanese), Kyushu Institute ofTechnology, 2019. .

Fig. 7. Vehicle fine-tuning by the participants

15Dr. Yasunori Takemura

Authors Introduction
Dr. Yuya Nishida

He is an Associate Professor at
Graduate School of Life
ScienceandSystemEngineering, Kyushu Instituteof Technology, Japan. His
research area is about filed
robotics, its application, anddata processing.

Dr. Takashi Sonoda

He is an Associate Professor at
Department Integrated SystemEngineering,Nishi-Nippon
InstituteofTechnology,
Fukuoka, Japan. His research
are underwater robotics androbot manipulator systems

Dr. Takayuki Matsuo

He is an Associate Professor atDepartment
CreativeEngineering, National Collegeof Technology (KOSEN),Kitakyushu College, Japan. His
research area is underwater
robots and biomimetic robots.

Dr. Shinsuke Yasukawa

Dr. Masanori Sato

Prof. Kazuo Ishii

He is an Associate Professor at
Graduate School of Life
ScienceandSystems
Engineering, Kyushu Instituteof Technology. His researchinterests include information
processinginbiologicalsystems and their applications
in robotics.

He is an Associate Professor in
theFacultyofAppliedInformation Technology inNagasaki Institute of Applied
Science, Japan. His maininterests are agricultural robots,
underwater robots, and life
support robots.

16

He is an Associate Professor atDepartment Integrated System
Engineering,Nishi-Nippon
InstituteofTechnology,
Fukuoka, Japan. His researcharea is about machine learning,data mining and Robotics

He is a Professor at Graduate
School of Life Science andSystem Engineering, Kyushu
Institute of Technology, Japan.
His research area is about field
robots and intelligent robot
systems