About The Project
The NYUAD roboSub was a student-led research project developed in the 2021-2022 academic year as part of the Engineering Design Studio at New York University Abu Dhabi. Its mission was to surpass theoretical education by creating physical machines and simulations for underwater robotics systems. The focus was on Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) to address contemporary challenges in the maritime industry. The team aimed to make a significant impact by providing innovative solutions to these challenges and laying the groundwork for future NYUAD Engineering students.
The project used the RoboSub 2022 competition as a platform to experiment with new sensors and actuators on the reefRover vehicle, which was based on the BlueROV platform at the time. Throughout this development, the team integrated newly conceptualized electronic systems, mechanical systems, computational systems, simulation environments, and machine learning techniques. Notably, the majority of the team consisted of first and second-year students who had to carve their own paths to learn and apply knowledge from subjects they had not yet studied in university.
Building on the success of the reefRover project, the roboSub project’s lifecycle included a plan to incorporate its learnings and progress back into supporting the goals of the reefRover mission: providing research-grade imagery and structured data about the coral reefs in our oceans.