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University of Windsor Students Win Autonomous Racing Challenge 2008
University of Windsor’s Team “Invincible” took first place in the Autonomous Racing Challenge 2008, held at University of Waterloo on April 26, 2008. The students designed and built fully autonomous vehicles that they put to the test in outdoor drag race and circuit competitions and in a static judging event. Windsor entered two teams, which included students from the Computer Vision and Sensing Systems Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and even a Belle River District high school student completing his community service hours. The winning vehicle was designed with a unique single vision system. The students used state-of-the-art algorithms to enable the robot to autonomously navigate itself through the race track.
The competition is one of the toughest in Canada where the robotic vehicles must perform tasks in a complex environment without human guidance or control. These robots are finding their way in applications such as space exploration, mining, search and rescue, remote sensing and automotive inspection. Some are even becoming common around the home for routine tasks, such as vacuuming and mowing lawns. In the future, these robots will even park and drive cars. Participating teams included University of Waterloo (three entries), University of Western Ontario, University of British Columbia, McMaster University, University of Windsor (two entries), RoboMontreal and a former DARPA Grand Challenge competitor. Team leader Sid Ahuja summed it well: “We gained a valuable experience by participating and winning this challenge, and are looking forward to the one next year”.
