FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Jul 25, 2008
San Diego, CA. 25 July 2008. General Atomics (GA) is again this year a key sponsor of the San Diego iBotics Student Engineering Society team in its quest for the prize in the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) Autonomous Underwater Vehicles competition. The contest will be held at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center – San Diego, July 29 through August 3, 2008.
GA is providing funding to support this endeavor and members of the GA Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV) engineering team are providing engineering mentoring for the iBotics team. Bruce Dyer, Program Manager, Special Projects, Advanced Technologies Group, stated, “We are again happy to support the iBotics team and their innovative vehicle design in this competition. These competitions and the opportunities they create for practical teamwork can be a significant experience for the participants. Many of them will be entering the engineering work force in the near future and it behooves us all to contribute to their preparation.”
GA is engaged in the development of advanced UUV technologies for the Navy and views this sponsorship opportunity as a way to nurture interest in the critical technologies associated with these types of systems at the collegiate level and increase awareness of the future of UUVs in the Navy to further stimulate student interest in this field. As an example of our involvement, Gideon Prior, a graduate student at UCSD who is leading the development of the Stingray AUV’s various control systems, is working at GA for the third straight summer.
General Atomics is a San Diego-based company with a 50-year history of successful solutions for environmental, energy, and defense challenges. GA specializes in performing innovative research and development and transforming conceptual results into practical systems. Affiliated manufacturing and commercial service companies include General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc., which produces the Predator® family of unmanned aerial systems.
For further information contact:
Bruce Dyer
Program Manager
Special Projects Office
Advanced Technologies Group
(858) 455-3634
Bruce.Dyer@ga.com
Carl Fisher
Director, Business Development
Electromagnetic Systems Division
(202) 496-8217
Carl.Fisher@ga.com
Doug Fouquet
Public Relations
(858) 455-2173
Fouquet@ga.com