RoboSub, founded in 1997, is an international robotics competition sponsored by RoboNation in which teams compete to create Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs). The competition gathers teams from around the world to participate in an event consisting of design presentations, system assessments, and autonomy challenges. The competition autonomy tasks mirror real-world AUV missions, such as identifying targets, manipulating objects, navigating around obstacles, and acoustic localization. All competition tasks must be completed autonomously, with no interference or connection to an operation.
The 2025 RoboSub competition will take place in Irvine, California, and is expected to host 60 teams from across the globe. This year’s autonomy challenge tasks consist of navigating through a gate, weaving between poles, dropping objects into a specified location, shooting torpedoes, moving objects into bins, and returning to the start of the course.