The CASMarine Unmanned Underwater Systems Team, operating under Yıldız Technical University (YTÜ), developed an AI-powered autonomous unmanned underwater vehicle. The vehicle, named 'Velaryon 2.0', won third place in the world at the TAC Challenge competition held in Norway.
The vehicle, produced entirely domestically, had its critical electronic components such as the hull, motherboard, power distribution board, battery management system, and control station designed from scratch by the students. The vehicle was developed for use in marine research and underwater industrial operations.
CASMarine Team Captain Adil Cihan Kurt stated that they have been working on unmanned underwater systems since 2016. He explained that Velaryon 2.0 can move in 6 axes with 8 motors, and maintains its balance unaffected by external factors thanks to the buoyancy foam on it. Kurt said, 'Even if you try to tilt the vehicle to the right or left, it tends to maintain its upright position. This gives us a significant advantage when it is affected by external factors such as waves underwater.'
Since the entire electronic system was produced by the student engineering team, full control is achieved over the motors and cameras. Thanks to AI-powered image processing algorithms, the vehicle can operate both by remote control and autonomously. Kurt said that they train the AI autonomous algorithms by processing images captured by the cameras, and after a certain stage, the vehicle can move on its own.
Emphasizing that the vehicle has a localization rate of about 80 percent, Kurt said, 'Many student teams around the world are developing similar vehicles. To set ourselves apart, we focused on domestic production as much as possible in the balance system, electronics, and mechanical design.' He added that Velaryon 2.0 could be used in areas such as coral reef inspection and detection of problems in oil pipelines.
Following their success in Norway, the team set their sights on winning first place in the world.
