The Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition, or IGVC for short, is a competition that UT Austin and various other universities across the United States partake in during June.
The goal of the competition is to create a robot that can autonomously navigate across a field, approximately the size of a soccer field, while staying within a marked course and avoiding obstacles, such as barrels or traffic cones. This competition is done to show the capabilities of robots to navigate unknown or dangerous terrain while carrying a payload, such as in a military environment or in a contaminated building.
To meet this objective, the robot is designed to be fairly large, hold a weight of about 20 pounds, and travel a maximum of five miles per hour. This competition is heavily software focused, as it relies on visual processing to determine if the robot is on course or if there is an obstacle blocking the robot and on GPS navigation to pinpoint where the robot is heading toward. For this endeavor, the 2015 fall semester has been focused on developing new members so they can implement the necessary features in the 2016 spring semester.
If you are a UT Austin student who is interested in joining this committee, feel free to visit. The hardware components are mostly finished but require routine maintenance. Likewise, the software components are in development, with people available to help you learn as you participate. Meetings will renew at the beginning of the 2016 spring semester at a yet to be determined date.