Abu Dhabi to host major drone developer competition with over $3 million prize pool
Abu Dhabi will host a global competition with a prize pool of over $3 million, challenging innovators worldwide to develop autonomous drone systems for maritime security and protection.
The Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC), scheduled to take place in the capital of the United Arab Emirates in June 2023, will require a group of autonomous drones to identify a target vessel (the violator) among several similar ships in open waters in a GNSS-denied environment.
Modern ships are equipped with complex control and navigation systems that help set routes, guide search and rescue operations and ensure safety at sea. Therefore, if ships enter an environment where global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) do not work, determining a vessel's location and coordinating with it quickly becomes a difficult task.
Participants will be able to use 5 to 20 drones to survey a defined area containing fewer than 10 boats in order to identify one or more violator vessels. To help identify the offender, participants will be provided with partial or blurry images of the vessel, possibly from different angles.
In the second part of the challenge, participants must unload specific items from the target vessel onto an unmanned ground vehicle as quickly as possible using autonomous technologies, such as a robotic arm.
The MBZIRC Maritime Grand Challenge aims to bring together international universities, research institutes, companies and individual innovators to find practical solutions to maritime problems such as illegal fishing, piracy, smuggling and human trafficking.
The robotics competition is organized by ASPIRE, the specialized technology program management center of the Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC), which is a comprehensive research body for advanced technologies in Abu Dhabi. Registration is already open.
“For countries with extensive coastlines, maritime security requires significant investment in modern equipment and highly qualified personnel. The use of advanced robotic systems can not only help reduce costs but also handle some dangerous tasks currently performed by humans. The motivation behind the MBZIRC Maritime Grand Challenge is to take technology out of the laboratory and test it in real-world conditions to see what is truly possible”
He noted that this smart system will find practical applications in other areas as well, especially because it can perform complex autonomous intervention tasks in environments without GNSS.
The first-place team will take home $2 million. The second-place team will receive $500,000, and the third-place team will receive $250,000. A special cash prize of $500,000 will also be awarded to all teams that advance to the demonstration phase. This amount will be divided among the teams.
Teams that accept prize money for the demonstration stage will grant ASPIRE a non-exclusive, perpetual and royalty-free license to their intellectual property, with the right to sublicense it to third parties.
The Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge is intended to become one of the largest and most prestigious international robotics competitions in the world. "At the forefront of research and experimentation, we strive to achieve new technological successes that are resilient to constantly changing markets, strengthening the UAE's role as a new center of advanced technological innovation," the organizers said.
The main goal of the competition aligns with the broader aim of ATRC to develop the research and development ecosystem in Abu Dhabi. The UAE capital is building the first quantum computer in the region, has rooms shielded from 4G networks designed for testing devices using electromagnetic interference, and recently announced plans to launch a drone network for transporting medical supplies.
“The competition is an excellent opportunity to showcase groundbreaking scientific research being conducted in Abu Dhabi and the UAE”
ASPIRE directs and shapes Abu Dhabi's advanced technology research for an unprecedented future, providing a clear path for innovation from the laboratory to the market. "As a key component of ATRC, we act boldly, without bureaucratic delays, with the freedom to make effective decisions regarding R&D funding and partnerships, carefully selecting our staff and affiliates locally and globally," the center said.
Robots and other autonomous systems are increasingly used in various fields, from healthcare and security to transportation and manufacturing, as they become cheaper and smarter.
However, there is a significant gap between current robotics capabilities and real-world requirements. With the MBZIRC Maritime Grand Challenge, ASPIRE seeks to bridge this gap by pushing technological boundaries and enabling robots to work more autonomously in dynamic, unstructured environments, interacting and collaborating with the center and with each other.
This is the first experiment of its kind that will involve heterogeneous collaboration between unmanned aerial vehicles and unmanned ground vehicles to perform complex navigation and control tasks in a maritime environment without GNSS.
