Florence University Wins NATO Underwater Robotics Contest Again

The University of Florence has once again proven its excellence in underwater robotics. The Unifi Robotics Team secured first place at the 2025 edition of RAMI (Robotics for Asset Maintenance and Inspection), an international competition organized by NATO’s Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE) in La Spezia, Italy.

Held from June 30 to July 4, the event brought together seven university teams from across Europe and Turkey, including participants from the universities of Pisa, Genoa, Girona, Utrecht, and Istanbul Technical University and Bahçeşehir University.

Representing the University of Florence were undergraduate, graduate, and PhD students from the School of Engineering. The team competed using FeelHippo AUV, a fully autonomous underwater vehicle equipped with advanced optical and acoustic sensors. Designed for high-precision inspections and capable of interacting with underwater infrastructure, the drone was pivotal to the team’s success.

The competition took place in open waters and featured three challenging trials, each focused on a different operational scenario. These included autonomous inspection tasks, such as locating submerged color-coded buoys without surface visibility, mapping artificial subsea structures, and tracking underwater pipelines to simulate real-life monitoring activities.

According to academic supervisor Alessandro Ridolfi, professor of Applied Mechanics and Robotics at the Department of Industrial Engineering, the team’s experience and commitment were key factors in retaining the title they also won in 2023. “We are very pleased to have defended last year’s title. The level of the other teams was extremely high, which makes our victory even more rewarding,” Ridolfi said.

The University of Florence has been competing in international underwater robotics events since 2012, steadily building a reputation for innovation and technical skill in this highly specialized field.

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