Join the 2017 CAT Vehicle CPS Challenge!

First task deadline is January 31st! Extended to March 11

DEADLINE EXTENSION:  The deadline for the first task has been extended to March 11th.  You may submit your Task #1 entry at the same time as your Task #2 entry.  Although Task #1 is quite simple as compared to later hurdles, the organizing team does not guarantee being able to offer any technical assistance related to questions on this first task after February 15th. 

The CAT Vehicle CPS Challenge 2017 aims to broaden participation in Cyber-Physical Systems and will be run in the spirit of the DARPA Robotics Challenge as a competition in four phases, each culminating in a defined task. The Challenge provides an exciting opportunity for students to build a component that controls and runs on a real self-driving car--the University of Arizona's CAT Vehicle.

Summary: In this challenge, you will be given data from the CAT Vehicle, driving along a path. Your task is to use those data to identify potential obstacles along and off the path, and provide possible identification of those obstacles using as few sensors as possible. If your team is selected to participate in the Final Challenge, then you will be able to control the velocity of the CAT Vehicle as it drives along the trajectory. The result will be a configuration file for a simulation environment (Gazebo) that mirrors the environment from which the data were extracted.

The challenge has 4 Tasks (all deadlines are 24:00 PT):

• Task 1 (31 January 2017): Team registration with a submission to the CPS-VO that demonstrates competency to run the tutorials provided to all teams - Submission form link: http://cps-vo.org/node/31478
• Task 2 (11 March 2017): Teams submit models and software to the CPS-VO that consume sensor and localization data to produce the coordinates of interesting objects after the conclusion of the CAT Vehicle's drive. Teams whose software executes successfully in simulation will have their code executed on the CAT Vehicle testbed, and will receive the resulting data files from their execution. Teams who complete Task 2 will be invited to Task 3
• Task 3 (31 March 2017): Teams submit models and software to the CPS-VO that consume sensor and localization data to produce a desired velocity (while traveling along the trajectory), and within 60 seconds of stopping at the end of the trajectory, should generate a Gazebo world file centered at the origin point of the trajectory. Teams whose software executes successfully in simulation will have their code executed on the CAT Vehicle testbed, and will receive the resulting data files from their execution. The four (4) top scoring teams may be invited to Task 4.
• Task 4 (Week of 24 April 2017): Teams will have an opportunity to modify and then re-run their Task 3 models on the CAT Vehicle in Tucson, AZ, over a period of 2-3 days. The models and software must be validated through the simulation framework before they are executed, for safety reasons.

Throughout each phase, data and simulation traces and setups from the CAT Vehicle testbed will be provided to teams through this page.

Note: Running Task 4 in Tucson is pending final agreements for sponsorship, and may be held by UA Organizers instead with sending results back to teams electronically.