Momentum - The Magazine for Virginia Tech Mechanical Engineering Vol. 3 No. 2 Summer 2018 | Page 23

The 2017 Chevrolet Bolt modified by Virginia
Tech's Victor Tango AutoDrive Team lines up at
the start of a closed test track before beginning the
first round of the three-year AutoDrive competi-
tion. Photo courtesy of SAE International.
With the car in Detroit, the
team considered pulling out
of the competition if the car
didn't make it back in time
to complete the necessary
testing to ensure the safety of
student vehicle operators.
navigate the faded lane lines,
Victor Tango AutoDrive was
the only team to complete the
second, lateral challenge.
Competition structure
Each team was tasked to
develop a fully autonomous
“...Later that week, we got
passenger vehicle using a
notice [from GM] that said,
2017 Chevy Bolt. In Arizona,
‘We’ve fixed your car, we’re
teams presented on the social
sending it back," said Cohen.
impacts of autonomous
vehicles then put their electri-
With 10 days to go before
competition, the team had to cal designs and coding to the
complete 100 hours of testing. test by navigating a closed test
track in autonomous mode.
Working around the clock,
the team was in coding mode,
In year one of the three-
and had just enough time to
year competition teams
complete all the testing they
focused on concept selection
set out to accomplish.
by becoming familiar with
sensing and computing
Ironically, Cohen said, the
software. They had to write a
time crunch enabled their
success as the team was forced concept design, and complete
an on-site evaluation with
to use a “fusion of old school
and new school,” methods in- dynamic tasks such as straight
tegrating traditional environ- roadway driving and object
avoidance and detection.
ment mapping with complex
perception algorithms.
The team placed in the top
three in each category:
“Everyone else at the com-
petition hadn’t relied on the
3rd - Social Responsibility
maps because they figured
Report
they could do it entirely with
3rd - Social Responsibility
perception,” Cohen said. “But
Presentation
the environment wasn't as
3rd - Mapping Challenge
well regulated as they thought
1st - Lateral Challenge
it was going to be.”
3rd - Object Detection and
Avoidance Challenge
Because their vehicle could
MOMENTUM
SUMMER 2018
Over the next two years
the car will carry out more
complex tasks, such as mov-
ing at higher speeds, making
U-turns, and dodging a dy-
namic object. The goal is that
by 2020, the team will pro-
duce a level four autonomous
vehicle - capable of steering,
braking, and responding to
traffic without the need for
human intervention, accord-
ing to SAE standards.
About the team
Victor Tango AutoDrive
Team is composed of engi-
neering, computer science,
and business students and
faculty from mechanical
engineering, computer
science, the Charles E. Via
Jr. Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering,
the Bradley Department of
Electrical and Computer
Engineering, and the Pamplin
College of Business.
The AutoDrive competition
is sponsored by GM and SAE,
with support from Continen-
tal, Intel, MathWorks, and
Velodyne LiDAR.
Victor Tango AutoDrive
Team received support from
TORC Robotics, Odoo,
Edmund Optics, and the
Virginia Tech Transportation
Institute.
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