Founded in Fall 2016, the University of Michigan Intelligent Ground Vehicle (UMIGV) is an engineering design team building a fully autonomous vehicle for the Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition in 2018 at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan.
UMIGV has worked across three pillars to 1) create the first student-led autonomous ground vehicle to compete at Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition held at Oakland University, 2) pilot the first-ever introduction to robotics course, and 3) create a unified student-led robotics group at the University of Michigan.
We believe that hands-on education complements classroom learning; any student, regardless of their background, can learn through robotics; and our work has a meaningful social impact. The future is autonomous robotics, and we aim to incubate our members to meet the challenges of tomorrow. Ultimately, our vision is a premier robotics team at U-M that is a place where anyone regardless of their background can get involved in robotics and a catalyst for spinning off entrepreneurial and social ventures.
In our first year, we have established a team, created a prototype vehicle, and hosted several demo events. We plan to continue the iterative development process to refine and optimize our vehicle’s autonomous behavior.
Our prototype vehicle operates at speeds up to 5mph, has a sensor suite comprised of 3D cameras and 2D lidar, and runs on a Linux-ROS computer system. In 2018, we hope to scale our project to build a compact, federally-compliant, autonomous car capable of transporting two passengers at speeds up to 45mph.
UMIGV is supported by Michigan Robotics in the College of Engineering, the Barger Leadership Institute Capstone program and other on-campus partners.
By: The UMIGV Team, including BLI Fellows Adarash Mishra and Gregory Meyer
