AUBURN HILLS – For the first time, the Oakland Robotics Association took the top prize at the 21st annual Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition topping 53 collegiate teams from across the globe. Team members won the Lescoe Cup.
Additionally, ORA placed second in the Design Competition and the Joint Architecture for Unmanned Systems (JAUS) Challenge, and third in the Autonomous Navigation Challenge.
IGVC challenges teams to build and operate autonomous robotic vehicles on an outdoor course with defined lanes, GPS waypoints and obstacles. The four-day competition is held annually on Oakland’s campus.
Engineering professor and ORA adviser KaC Cheok was proud of ORA team’s accomplishments.
“The OU robotics team is a multi-disciplinary group of engineering students whose talents peak simultaneously in the fields of mechanical, electrical, computer, mechatronics, and systems control engineering,” he said. “They are motivated, confident, knowledgeable, critical, creative, tireless and ambitious. And they get it done!'”
The team spent about 600 hours developing and building their autonomous robotic vehicle, Replicant at a cost of $14,000.
Technologies utilized in the process are widely applicable and are quickly being commercialized in the development of vehicles that drive and park autonomously, brake automatically and execute lane detection.
“The automotive industry is moving in a huge concerted and competitive direction in active driver’s assistance systems where cars and trucks help to mitigate accidents,” Cheok explained, who is also a co-chair and co-founder of IGVC.
“We are already seeing the robotics technologies incorporated in automobiles today with collision warning and avoidance systems, automatic parking, and more.”
