An autonomous ground vehicle competition-driven capstone design course

In this paper we relate our experience with the integration of the International Ground Robotics Competition (IGRC) into the Electrical and Computer Engineering senior capstone design course sequence at the University of Detroit Mercy. The use of a competition-driven autonomous ground vehicle (AGV) design for a senior capstone program offers a number of benefits and challenges. The attractive features include: the student excitement and motivation created by the competitive environment; the fact that an AGV design is inherently multidisciplinary in nature involving mechanical and electrical system integration, power electronics, feedback control, digital electronics, software development, sensors, safety, power management etc.; the competition-driven format mimics the need in industry to carry out deadline-conscious product design; and the sophistication of subsystems like vision, obstacle detection, path planning, and feedback control offer good opportunities for graduate and undergraduate research projects. The challenges include: maintaining focus on proper design methodology and avoiding ad hoc ends justify the means design; the extensive fund raising necessary to pay for the expensive component systems; the substantial faculty time and energy necessary to support such a comprehensive design effort; and the course structural organization required to support a contest deadline occurring after the first five weeks of the second semester of the two semester capstone design course sequence.