Source: The Daily Bulletin, University of Waterloo
A team of undergraduate and graduate students from the University of Waterloo Robotics Team and the Waterloo Autonomous Vehicles Lab are back from the recent Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition with the best showing of any Canadian entry.
Seen in the photo, left to right, are faculty advisor Steven Waslander (mechanical and mechatronics engineering), PJ Mukhurjee, Sid Ahuja, Arun Das, Michael Tribou. Key team members not pictured include Peiyi Chen and Ryan Turner.
The 19th annual Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition was held at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. It’s described as one of the largest and most prestigious competitions for custom autonomous vehicles in North America. The competition is run annually by the Associate for Unmanned Vehicle’s International, with sponsors including the US Department of Defense, Lockheed Martin, and General Dynamics.
The Waterloo entry — named Indrik — placed second out of 56 teams from the United States, Canada, India, Japan and the United Arab Emirates in the vehicle design competition, winding up just 4 points (out of a possible 300) behind the grand prize winner. Waterloo also finished 4th in the JAUS challenge, which requires successful implementation of an industrial calibre communications framework for autonomous vehicles.
According to Craig MacKenzie, a member of the team’s executive, the competitors are also looking forward to a top-ten finish in the autonomous navigation challenge, which requires vehicles to autonomously navigate between four GPS waypoints while dynamically avoiding obstacles including construction barrels and staggered fencing without human intervention. Full results will be released at the end of the month.
The competition also features a “fully autonomous” challenge (without GPS) requiring navigation of a simulated roadway strewn with barricades. A last-minute failure of the vision computer left Indrik unable to participate properly in that event.
However, the team’s solid mechanical design and software strategies were widely recognized by competitors. “Our custom suspension design and unique approach to mapping and path planning generated a lot of interest with the other teams and industry representatives,” says a report from Rochester. “We are eagerly looking forward to continued development and even more success in the future!”
