Surface vehicle
A BlueBoat-derived catamaran whose sensors turn independently of the hull: a Livox Avia LiDAR and an OAK-1 camera on a custom three-axis gimbal.
Explore the boat
RobotX 2026
Georgia Tech Marine Robotics Group
An autonomous boat and drone for the 2026 Maritime RobotX Challenge.An autonomous boat and drone for the 2026 Maritime RobotX Challenge. The boat's gimbal aims its LiDAR and camera wherever the mission needs them, whichever way the hull is pointing.
The 2026 vehicles
Aerial vehicle
A modified Holybro X650 that scouts the course from above and releases payloads where the boat can't reach.
Explore the droneSystem overview
Mechanical
Hydrodynamically optimized BlueBoat catamaran hull fitted with custom structural crossbars, equipment bays, motor brackets, and mounting interfaces for the 2-DOF water shooter and sensor payloads.
Boat mechanical design
Electrical
High-capacity Lithium-ion battery system powering isolated compute and propulsion buses, PRESto electromechanical cutoff relays, frontseat Raspberry Pi with Navigator hat, and backseat Nvidia Jetson Orin Nano.
Boat electrical design
Software
Camera and LiDAR detections become persistent object tracks via JIPDA. A BehaviorTree.CPP architecture runs each task, reacts to competition incidents, and resumes execution seamlessly.
Boat softwareMechanical
Modified Holybro X650 carbon-fiber airframe featuring extended landing skids, motor vibration dampeners, and a 3D-printed cruciform payload cradle holding two delivery tins with permanent magnet retention.
Drone mechanical design
Electrical
Four 6S 22.2V LiPo battery bank with hot-swap power distribution, powering a Pixhawk flight controller, nadir-mounted Ainstein US-D1 radar altimeter, and an Nvidia Jetson Orin Nano for onboard vision inference.
Drone electrical design
Software
Autonomous flight with geofence, altitude fence, and comms-loss failsafes, sharing what it sees with the boat.
Drone softwareTesting and progress
Every field day, pool test, and simulation run is logged with its objective, time on the water or in the air, and what we changed afterward.
Latest: Aug 27, UAV pool buoyancy check.
See the testing timeline
Aug 27, buoyancyThe 2026 team
- Thomas Devlin
- Paul Dubrulle
- Sean T. Fish
- Soham Goel
- Samuel I. Ibidapo
- Jorge L. Ortiz Solano
- Shrey D. Patel
- Aaron E. Wu
- Nathan Xie
Contact us at marinerobotics@groups.gatech.edu
