In Jan 2009, a team of 6 midshipman set out to design and build Robo-Goat, USNA's first entry into the Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition, in Rochester Michigan. Mids Lacy, and Calvanico traveled to compete, along with then 2/C Bush and Advisers Profs. Joel Esposito and Brad Bishop.
The team won the Rookie of the Year Award! Placing solidly in the middle of the pack out of the 30 teams that qualified. About 20 teams did not pass the qualifying round.
As part of ES402 Systems Engineering Design, the mids undertook a systematic component selection process. The vehicles uses a camera to detect lane markings in the grass and a scanning laser range finder (aka LADAR) to avoid obstacles. You can see the lane following in action in this video:
Here the obstacle avoidance algorithm is tested:
The final event (and our best) was the GPS challenge, in which the vehicle had to hit as many way points as possible within 7 minutes.
We've already statred improving the old goat. We can't wait for the 2010 competition!
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