MBZIRC Maritime Grand Challenge

Robots and other autonomous systems are increasingly being adopted in diverse fields – from healthcare and security to transport and manufacturing – as they become cheaper and smarter. However, a significant gap exists between the current reality of robotic capabilities and real-world requirements. Through the Competition, ASPIRE is looking to bridge this gap by pushing technological boundaries and enabling robots to work more autonomously in dynamic, unstructured environments, while interacting and collaborating with us, and with one another.

The Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC) is an international robotics competition held in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The Competition shall bring together accredited universities, research institutions and individual innovators from all over the world to collaborate in finding a practical solution to global maritime security challenges such as, but not limited to, illegal fishing, piracy, smuggling and human trafficking.

The goal of the Competition is to develop an innovative autonomous system that shall help tackle these wide-ranging maritime challenges, and ensure the safety of personnel in the maritime surveillance and intervention sector. This highly complex, multi-layered task involves autonomous aerial and surface vehicles working together in a GNSS-denied environment off the coast of Abu Dhabi, to detect unfriendly vessels and offload goods from them in the shortest possible time. Due to limited offshore connectivity, these various maritime security challenges require systems that can operate in GNSS denied environments without having to rely on human intervention. The complexity of the Competition could be furthered by weather conditions such as sandstorms, strong winds, rough seas and the hot summer sun.