Oakland University hosted the 24th annual Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC) in partnership with the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) and the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC).

The competition, which ran June 3-6, included dozens of robotics teams from around the world.

Participants included teams from the United States, Canada, Mexico, India and Turkey, who aspired for various awards including Rookie of the Year, recognizing the competition’s best newcomer, and the Lescoe Cup, which is the top prize of the IGVC.

The IGVC competition aims to offer cutting-edge, multidisciplinary design experience for engineering students through a theory-based, hands-on, outcome-assessed approach.

Additionally, the program works to encompass the latest engineering technologies that impact industrial development while maintaining the interests of students.

The event was free and open to the public, featuring robots that were designed and constructed by engineering students at their respective universities. Each robot was expected to perform tasks in three key events:

• Auto-Navigation Challenge – Vehicles must complete an outdoor course in full autonomous mode while negotiating obstacles and maneuvering using GPS coordinates to target destinations. Teams complete the Basic Course before moving on to the Advanced Course.
• IOP Challenge – Vehicles perform with the IOP (Interoperability Profiles) open architecture for unmanned systems. The IOP facilitates communications between various robotic platforms.
• Design Competition – A written report is submitted, then an oral presentation and vehicle demonstration is presented to the IGVC Design Judge Panel.

The competition was sponsored by OU, Continental, TARDEC, Hyundai Mobis, AUVSI Foundation, AUVSI Great Lakes, Magna, ClearPath Robotics, Roush, Michigan Chapter of the National Defense Industrial Association, Molex and TORC Robotics, and awarded over $37,500 to the winning teams in each category.

OU will also host next year’s IGVC competition, June 2-5, 2017.

For more information about IGVC, how to become involved and a full list of results, visit http://www.igvc.org/index.htm.