Aegean Ro-boat Race

The Aegean Ro-Boat Race is aAn international university level competition, challenging teams to design and develop innovative autonomous robotics systems that can perform at sea in real world coastal conditions. The purpose of which, is to foster innovation, while strengthening ties between academic institutions, industry, and stakeholders. Its aim is to help the maritime sector, identify and deal with the challenges emerging from the introduction of autonomous and AI-driven technologies, while testing and improving the maturity of the solutions themselves in the field with stakeholder involvement.

The overall objectives include
• Fostering innovation through a challenge on the water
• Training the next generation of maritime professionals
• Connecting industry, academia, and stakeholders.
• Raising awareness and networking activities for autonomous vessels and maritime technologies
This will be the first initiative to bring together the global community of researchers and industrial partners, which is currently heavily fragmented both in thematic (AI, Big Data, Robotics, naval engineering) and in regional ensembles (e.g. UK Marine Autonomy Challenge, The Njord Challenge etc.).
The planned scientific workshop and summer school that will be organized along with the race, will be an additional opportunity to network, learn from experts and mobilize dialogue exchange with leading actors in the field. After the completion of the races, the organizers are committed to making all datasets produced publicly available to promote further research and knowledge transfer.