University of Florida and Windows XP Embedded win Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition

This is awesome, for the second year running the University of Florida have won the AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) Competition.

Click here to get the final standings from the competition.

The AUV from the University of Florida is running Windows XP Embedded - it would appear that the initial o/s image took a couple of days to get up and running and then just minor tweaks through to the event - I wonder if University of Florida are considering the Microsoft Robotics Studio for next years competition. The AUV competition rules can be found here.

Here's an extract from the competition rules - seems like this would be a really interesting project.

The fundamental goal of the mission is for an AUV to demonstrate its autonomy by completing three
tasks. One task is to rendezvous with a “docking station” (Station A). Another task is to have the vehicle
inspect a pipeline and marking an area in the pipeline (Station B). The third task is to home in on an
acoustic beacon and breech within the zone marked on the surface with floats (Station C).

- Mike