Teams from 12 universities and high schools will compete in 3rd Annual Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Competition at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando, Florida. The goal of the competition, which is sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), is to advance the state-of-the-art of AUVs by challenging a new generation of engineers to perform realistic missions in the remote underwater environment.

The Navy is interested in AUVs because of their potential use in underwater mapping and rescue and recovery missions, including dangerous tasks, such as finding and neutralizing mines. The technology these students create while developing their robotic subs could be used in future naval systems; however, the real payoff is in the experience gained working as a multidisciplinary team to accomplish a challenging underwater mission with limited resources.

A total of $10,000 will be awarded to the teams, and the winning team will present its technical paper during the Unmanned Systems 2000 Symposium, AUVSI's annual conference and exhibition, which will be held at the same Disney resort on July 11-13.