(Originally published on 04/27/2008)
Team Invincible from University of Windsor took the first place in the Autonomous Racing Challenge 2008 held in University of Waterloo this year. The competition that took place on Saturday (April 26), involves racing fully autonomous vehicles head-to-head on an outdoor track consisting of a drag race competition, a circuit competition and static judging.
The team comprised of the students from the Computer Vision and Sensing Systems Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (Siddhant Ahuja (Sid), and Thanh Nguyen) and a Belle River District high school student doing his volunteering at our lab (Michael Stolarchuk). As part of the course project (88-554: Automotive sensor's course with Dr. Jonathan Wu), the team lead by Siddhant Ahuja (Sid) worked night and day on this project. The project attracted funding from BASF ($1k) and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering ($500), and was supported by the Don Tersigni (Electronic Technologist with the department). With a simple yet sophisticated design involving a single vision system and state-of-the-art algorithms, the robot was able to autonomously navigate itself through the race track. "I was quite proud of all the hard work the team put into the robot and I was glad to see it pay off," commented Don Tersigni (Electronic Technologist and Departmental support).
Team Invincible from University of Windsor
The competition is one of the toughest robotic competitions held in Canada where the robot machines perform desired tasks in a complex environment without the need for 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 autonomous robots are even becoming common around the home for routine tasks such as vacuuming, mowing lawns, parking cars, and in future, driving cars.
Winning Robot:Team Invincible from University of Windsor
Teams that participated in the competition include teams from University of Waterloo (3 entries), University of Western Ontario, University of British Columbia, McMaster University, University of Windsor (2 entries), RoboMontreal and a former DARPA Grand Challenge competitor.
The prize money of $500.00 was split amongst the team.
"We gained a valuable experience by participating and winning this challenge, and are looking forward to the one next year", said Siddhant Ahuja (Sid).
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