May 30, 2019
From June 7-10, Oakland University will host the 27th Annual Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC), which provides an opportunity for engineers and computer scientists from around the world to compete with their uniquely-designed autonomous unmanned ground vehicles (UGV).
“The IGVC is a total vehicle system engineering experience,” said Gerald Lane, president of Great Lakes Systems & Technology LLC. “It also provides a cutting-edge engineering education for students. It’s one of the most advanced projects that they will be involved with.”
Lane, OU Engineering Professor KaC Cheok, and Bernie Theisen of the United States Army’s Ground Vehicle Systems Center serve as co-chairmen of the IGVC, which 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.
This year, more than 45 teams are expected to participate in the event.
During the competition, each team will participate in a series of challenges, including:
• The Auto-Nav Challenge, which consists of an outdoor obstacle course that requires the UGVs to perform full autonomous operation/navigation throughout. Competitors can encounter natural or artificial inclines (ramps) and randomly placed obstacles along the course, such as construction barrels/drums that are used on roadways and highways.
• The Design Competition, which challenges students to document their vehicle development by creating a design report, followed by an in-person presentation to the design judges during the actual IGVC event, including a vehicle examination by the judges.
• The Inter-Operability Profile (IOP) Challenge, which encourages students to make their vehicles more interoperable, by requiring development of a Joint Architecture for Unmanned Systems (JAUS) compliant UGV, which is the architecture current military robots are being designed to.
• The Self-Drive Challenge, which requires vehicles to perform road operations including lane keeping, lane switch, merging, avoiding crossing obstacles (simulated pedestrians/vehicles), taxi pickup of passengers, simulated pothole detection, stop and crosswalk lines detection, right/left turn and intersection detection/logic, navigation to GPS waypoints and autonomous parking.
“To better demonstrate the automotive applications of IGVC, the Self-Drive Challenge was structured to address smart driving cars and driver assist relevant to the automotive industry,” Lane said.
This year’s competition will also feature a new Cyber Security Challenge sponsored by Federal IT Consulting LLC, a Department of Defense and Detroit Arsenal Cyber Security contractor.
The challenge will include a written report demonstrating an understanding of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Risk Management Framework (RMF) process in general, followed by a specific case study using either a provided or novel threat concept applied to a specific vehicle.
An oral presentation will also be delivered during the IGVC competition and will demonstrate the team’s understanding of the NIST RMF process, as well as how it was applied to the choice, design, and implementation of cyber controls for team robots specific to the chosen threat scenario.
“The goal of the Cyber Security Challenge is to educate and promote knowledge of vehicle cyber security best practices for autonomous, intelligent and smart vehicles,” said Andrew Kosinski with the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Ground Vehicle Systems Center in Warren, Mich.
The IGVC competition is held in the field on the southwest corner of Adams Road and Walton Boulevard.
For more information, visit www.IGVC.org.