The UTRA's Autonomous Robotic Systems team will be competing in the international Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (http://www.igvc.org/) 2011 in Rochester, Michigan, the United States of America. This will be the first time that the University of Toronto will be entering this prestigious competition.
The Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC) is an annual international inter-university competition organized by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), with assistance from the United States Department of Defence and various other non-governmental organizations. The objective of the competition is to design and build a completely autonomous unmanned ground robotic vehicle. The vehicle must compete in a series of challenges designed to test the level of automation, intelligence and engineering innovation incorporated within the designed robotic vehicle.
There are four main challenges in the IGVC:
- Autonomous Challenge - The robotic vehicle must negotiate around an outdoor obstacle course under a prescribed time-limit while staying within the path boundaries and observing a strict 5 mph speed limit.
- Navigation Challenge - The robotic vehicle must start at a fixed starting position and make its way around a large area towards a set of fixed waypoints (or target locations) in the least amount of time, and return to the starting position. It must do so while avoiding any and all obstacles on the course.
- Design Competition - The design team must submit a written report and present its final design to the judges, highlighting the innovative, intelligent or unique features of the design. The presentation will be followed by an examination of the robotic vehicle by the judges.
- JAUS Challenge - The objective of this challenge is to use the US Department of Defence developed "Joint Architecture for Unmanned Systems (JAUS)" standard for communication between sub-systems in a network containing unmanned systems. The robotic vehicle must interact with the judge’s computer, designated COP, utilizing the JAUS architecture.
Detailed rules for the 2010 competition are available on the IGVC's website: http://www.igvc.org/rules.html
