Oxford Technical Solutions to provide GNSS/INS testing equipment and tech support to SAE International/General Motors-backed driverless car competition for students
OxTS is excited to announce its role as a technology sponsor of the AutoDrive Challenge, a new autonomous vehicle competition designed to further the development of self-driving cars while nurturing the next generation of autonomous vehicle engineers.
The AutoDrive Challenge has been organised by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) International in collaboration with General Motors. Over the next three years, teams of students from eight universities across the United States and Canada will be tasked with developing a fully autonomous passenger car. Using a Chevrolet Bolt EV as the base vehicle, the ultimate goal will be to demonstrate full Level 4 autonomous driving capability by successfully navigating an urban driving course.
The AutoDrive Challenge will take place at GM’s proving ground in Yuma, Arizona. The first week of trials begin on 30th April, with challenges including straight-line driving, lane following, serpentine navigation and accurate stopping to traffic signs and road markings.
Each of the autonomous vehicles will be fitted with an RT3003 GNSS-aided inertial navigation system (INS) to provide position, speed and orientation data used by the AutoDrive scoring team to judge how well the teams navigate the course. This same ‘ground-truth’ methodology is used across the globe by autonomous development teams using RT3003s on the open road.
“OxTS is proud to be a part of the AutoDrive Challenge,” says OxTS Product Manager, Simon Thompson. “This is a fantastic opportunity to be at the forefront of fresh thinking and new developments in the field of self-driving cars. We look forward to fostering a working relationship with the automotive engineers of tomorrow, and we’re pleased that SAE and GM have recognised our systems to be trusted as a validation tool for the sensors onboard the vehicles, including other GNSS/INS systems used by the teams.”
OxTS RT products have established themselves as the automotive industry standard GNSS-aided INS, while the RT-Range S multiple-target measurement system is used to process the range, orientation and relative motion of a number of vehicles. Together, they offer the perfect solution for the testing and evaluation of autonomous cars and ADAS technologies and will prove invaluable to the teams participating in the AutoDrive Challenge.
