IEEE Newsletter - University of Peradeniya Volume 2 (March 2019) | Page 29

Under Water Robot U nderwater robo cs is a modern trend which leads underwater research ac vi es around the world. The Singapore Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Challenge, dubbed as SAUVC, is an effort by the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society, Singapore Chapter, to engage and expose the ter ary students to the challenges of AUV design. The program started in 2013 and was originally intended to create awareness among the local students on the importance of underwater robo cs and its relevance to Singapore. However, it grew into an interna onal compe on from its very incep on as it was felt that opening up the compe on at an interna onal level would add diversity to the design approaches. The SAUVC compe on challenges par cipant teams to build an AUV which can perform given tasks. These tasks are simula ons of tasks that opera onal AUVs should be able to perform. The compe on is held in a swimming pool and each team's AUV has to perform 4 tasks; Naviga on, Target Acquisi on, Target Reacquisi on and Localiza on. The speed and accuracy at which the AUV performs tasks is used to decide the winner of the compe on. The team that par cipated from University of Peradeniya for SAUVC compe on in 2018 presen ng their project 'Yathra' , was able to secure the 7th place amongst teams from various countries in region 10. The aim of this project was to design and implement hardware with a controller for a six-axis autonomous underwater mobile robot with-nonlinear controlling techniques. Team members Shan Wijesinghe Electrical and Electronic Engineering University of Peradeniya IEEE Newsletter University of Peradeniya H P Madhushanka Prabath Ekanayake Ruchira Thilan Munasinghe Chathuska Chamith Ratnapala Gihan Palihakkara Harshana Madhushanka Thilanka Gunaratne Ranga Premathilaka PAGE 27