The Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition is an international autonomous vehicle challenge that our club has participated in since 2006.

Competition

There are four problem categories at IGVC. The problems require solutions that involve cutting-edge mechanical, electrical and computational approaches. The sum quality of each team's submission over these four challenges constitutes a winner. The four challenges include: a navigation challenge that requires AI understanding of video imagery, a waypoint challenge in an uncharted, obstacle-ridden area, a compliance challenge with a DARPA protocol standard called JAUS, and a design challenge where the team presents and defends their solution to a panel of industry professionals.

Vehicle Constraints / Qualification Rules

In order to enter the contest, each team must meet certain qualification criteria. Below is a summary of the constraints. Full details can be found at the official IGVC Rules page.

Navigation Challenge

The goal of this competition is to produce a robot that can autonomously navigate to goal positions in a complex competition field while avoiding obstacles, recognizing objects using computer vision and making higher level decisions.

Real obstacles and virtual obstacles (painted lines on grass) are mixed on the competition field. All robots must be able to recognize and avoid both real-world and virtual obstacles.

Waypoint Challenge

The Waypoint Challenge tests an entry's ability to navigate to several GPS goal coordinates. The entry's score is awarded based on the number of goal coordinates successfully reached and the amount of time it took for the autonomous agent to complete it's navigation plan. This straightforward task is complicated by the fact that goal positions are blocked by walls of obstacles. A robotic entity has to be capable of judging when it should abandon it's current plan and begin to follow a new one.

JAUS Challenge

The JAUS challenges is primarily designed to generate interest in DARPA's JAUS protocol. This protocol is DARPA's standard for autonomous robotic communication. IGVC splits JAUS qualification into two stages, the second of which tests for a more complete implementation of the standard.

Design Challenge

All teams which enter in IGVC each year must present full details to a panel of industry professionals describing their mechanical, electrical and computational approaches to solving the autonomous challenges. The presentation team also has to make their novel approach accessible to a non-technical audience with clear and succinct explanations.