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The Millersville University Robotics Team, ‘Ville Robotics, recently returned victorious from the 29th Annual Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition at Oakland University in Michigan.
Millersville took two robots to the June competition; A.Li.E.N. 2.0 and A.Li.E.N. 3.0. A.Li.E.N. is an acronym for Autonomous LiDAR-Based Environment Navigator. The 2.0 robot used a distributed control system design with smart sensors (LiDAR, Machine Vision and GPS/Compass) connected to a 32-bit microcontroller. The 3.0 robot had a more traditional pc-based (ROS) mapping/path-planning design using LiDAR, a camera, GPS, and wheel encoders. While 3.0 did not qualify this year (made 4/5 qualifying checkpoints), it was really planned for 2023.
“The 2.0 version robot was quite impressive with its localized control methodology,” says Dr. John Wright, professor at Millersville. Wright and Dr. John Haughery from Applied Engineering, Safety & Technology accompanied 13 students to the competition.
Ville Robotics and A.Li.E.N 2.0, competing against top universities around the world, brought home four awards:
- 4th Place Overall
- 1st Robot to Qualify Award
- 2nd Place Design
- 6th Place Performance
Twenty-two robots from around the world competed in the 2022 IGVC AutoNav. Robots from top engineering schools such as Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Oklahoma University, Cedarville University, Penn State University, The Indian Institute of Technology, Hosei University – Japan, Rutgers University, Lawrence Technological University, University of Toronto, The University of Newfoundland, and many more provided excellent competition.
The purpose of the IGVC is to offer a design experience at the cutting edge of engineering education. It is a multidisciplinary, theory-based, hands-on, team implemented, outcome assessed and based on product realization. The contest is open to undergraduate and graduate students to display their talent in autonomous vehicle design.
Interested in robots? Check out Millersville’s Automation & Intelligent Robotics Engineering Technology program
