Caltech Robotics Launches New and Greatly Improved Robot Called “Crush”

Caltech’s Robotics Team has just launched “Crush,” its new entry for the upcoming 2015 Robosub Competition, and a “faster, smarter, more integrated machine than last year’s “Bruce” which earned the team 7th place.

“We’ve been relatively quiet on the news front these past few months as members of our team have been working diligently on an incredible project that is now finally coming to fruition,” the team announced on its website, www.crt.caltech.edu.

This year, the team’s Robosub entry Crush will be a “completely new robust and integrated design, with more competitive capabilities than Bruce had.

Crush, according to the team, can deploy markers, manipulate objects, and fire torpedos.

In describing the robot, Caltech Robotics Team said the improvements they did include a single, integrated pressure hull, active control over all six degrees of freedom, and a passive sonar system.

“With the improvements, the vehicle can maintain an arbitrary orientation, sustain a maximum surge speed of 1.5 knots, and locate a sonar pinger,” said the team. Caltech says Crush represents the state of the art for low-cost, actively controlled autonomous underwater vehicles.

Before Crush goes to the 18th Annual International Robosub Competition, Caltech Robotics Team members will be “fine-tuning our vehicle to ensure that we can ‘crush’ the competition.”

The Robosub competition aims to advance the development of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) by challenging engineers to perform realistic missions in an underwater environment. Co-sponsored by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, the competition encourages young engineers to be excited about careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

This year’s Robosub happens on July 20th to the 26th at the SSC Pacific Transdec in San Diego.