Heriot-Watt students celebrating victory

Heriot-Watt students win underwater competition

Battling against her European neighbours, Nessie III, the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) won first prize in this year's Student Autonomous Underwater Competition (SAUC-E).

Students from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh competed against five university teams to win first prize of €11,000 and the Thales Special Award for Innovation.

SAUC-E aims to encourage future scientists and engineers to design and build an AUV that can complete a complex underwater mission. Heriot-Watt was the only team able to complete the tasks set. They had 40 minutes to locate and touch a submerged buoy, avoid decoys, drop markers on a target, and surface in a marked zone whilst producing a full map of the competition area.

Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) underwater vehicle specialist and competition coordinator, Phil Brown, was one of this year's judges and also helped organise the event. He said: "I hope the number of teams in the competition will grow and the innovation produced is pulled through into operational vehicles."

Next year's event will take place at QinetiQ's Ocean Basin, Gosport, during July.