From the Lab to the Real World
Robots and other autonomous systems are increasingly being adopted in diverse fields – from health care and security to transport and manufacturing – as they become cheaper and smarter.
The MBZIRC Maritime Grand Challenge was launched to bridge the gap between robotic capabilities and real-world requirements - by pushing technological boundaries and enabling robots to work more autonomously in dynamic, unstructured environments, while interacting and collaborating with humans and with one another.
Held in 2024, the competition brought together universities, research institutions, and individual innovators from around the world to collaborate on finding a practical solution to global maritime security challenges such as illegal fishing, piracy, smuggling, and human trafficking.
It was the first experiment of its kind to involve heterogeneous collaboration between unmanned aerial vehicles and unmanned surface vehicles, performing complex navigation and manipulation tasks in a GNSS-denied marine environment.
