TEKNOFEST Board of Directors and Turkey Technology Team Foundation Board of Trustees Chairman Selçuk Bayraktar met with the teams competing in the Unmanned Underwater Systems and Unmanned Marine Vehicle competitions held in Mersin.
Bayraktar, who examined the students’ remote-controlled or autonomous marine vehicles, posed for photos with the participants in a “TEKNOFEST pose”.
Expressing his pleasure in meeting with the youth, Bayraktar said, “You are the generations that will carry our country to a fully independent, prosperous future. You are the architects of the future.”
Youngsters competed fiercely in competitions
It pioneered the competitions organized in four different categories within the scope of TEKNOFEST Adana, which will be held at Şakirpaşa Airport between 02-06 October, under the main coordination of the Turkish Technology Team Foundation (T3 Foundation) and the Ministry of Industry and Technology.
The Antalya stop of the competitions, which attracted great interest from young minds, was held at the ANFA Fair Center on September 5-8, 2024. Following the Air Defense Systems and Artificial Intelligence in Transportation Competition in Antalya, where the final excitement was experienced, fierce competition was also experienced among young people in the competitions in Mersin. The Unmanned Underwater Systems Competition, organized by ASELSAN, was held at the Mersin Olympic Swimming Pool on September 17-20, 2024, and the Unmanned Marine Vehicle Competition was held at the Mersin Erdemli Fishing Shelters on September 19-22, 2024.
Of the 124 teams that applied to the Unmanned Marine Vehicle Competition, those that successfully completed obstacle avoidance and docking tasks manually and autonomously competed in the finals. 1,110 teams that applied to the Unmanned Underwater Systems Competition competed to successfully complete scenarios such as torpedo launching, underwater cable detection, and passing through doors with color detection systems.
AKYOL: WE ARE PLANTING THE SEEDS OF THE FUTURE
ASELSAN General Manager Ahmet Akyol said the following about TEKNOFEST competitions:
“We are planting the seeds of our National Technology Initiative today with the ideas of our youth who will have a say in the future of our country. The performance of the engineers, pilots and space scientists of the future in the competitions we organized made us proud. Our youth demonstrated their talents and innovative ideas with our Unmanned Underwater Systems and Unmanned Marine Vehicle Competitions, which were organized for the first time.
ASELSAN, using the technological know-how and capabilities it has gained to date, has brought Turkey’s first domestic and national over-the-horizon submarine defense warfare sonar DÜFAS to the Blue Homeland with a completely original technology. The unmanned marine vehicle swarm system (ALBATROS-S) with high-level autonomy capability, capable of navigating and performing tasks in a swarm formation independent of a central control, and the unmanned marine vehicle MARLİN 100 EW, developed to perform surface warfare and electronic warfare tasks, were also developed by ASELSAN.
Recently, the use of unmanned systems, robots and autonomous systems has become widespread. As ASELSAN, we are working on platforms that will be widely used in the battlefield of the future, can be controlled remotely and have autonomous decision-making capabilities. We have gained significant experience with solutions such as DaÜFAS, MARLİN and Albatros Unmanned Marine Vehicles, FERSAH Hull Mounted Sonar and Autonomous Underwater Vehicle DERINGÖZ. With TEKNOFEST competitions, we combine these capabilities of ASELSAN from the past with the bright ideas of young people. I believe that our young people will undertake important projects in this field today, when the protection of the Blue Homeland is critical. Thanks to the projects that young people add value to with their intelligence, we will develop the unmanned systems of the future together. On this occasion, I congratulate all TEKNOFEST youth who compete fiercely with their intelligence and determination.”
