The UTAC Challenge is a European student automotive challenge, dedicated to mobility of the future. Emie, Pierre and Romain, 3rd year students specializing in vehicle architecture, took part in the competition in May. They won 3rd prize in the free event for their work on automobile autonomous driving software.
How did you prepare for the UTAC challenge?
Romain: For five weeks, we worked on simulating the behavior of an autonomous vehicle on freeways as part of a school project (the system application). We built on the work carried out by other students the previous year and worked on issues such as adaptive cruise control, lane keeping, emergency braking, overtaking, etc.
We also introduced a few physical components (camera and radar) in anticipation of the future design of a physical vehicle.
How did you divide up the work?
Emie and Pierre took charge of deciphering, debugging and optimizing the work carried out the previous year. I drew up a parts list and worked on introducing the camera and radar. To work on our project, we mainly used Matlab Simulink (for coding) and Scanner (graphical user interface).
How did you overcome the difficulties you encountered?
The whole project called for extensive skills in robotics, which was not our area of expertise. However, we were able to get help from the robotics lab for all the coding and simulation. We also carried out extensive information retrieval work. We're very grateful for the help we were given by roboticists.
What are you most proud of about this challenge?
We're proud to have developed a workable application in such a short space of time. We ticked all the boxes, which was very satisfying! We're also grateful for this third-place awarded by automotive professionals. The members of the jury expressed their satisfaction with the improvements we'd made to the project.
What do you take away from this challenge day on the UTAC Linas-Montlhéry tracks?
Everything was done to ensure that participants had a great day out. It was a pleasant surprise to discover the projects of other candidates and to learn more about them.
What lessons were you able to draw from this?
We gained a great deal of expertise in robotics, a field that was not initially our own. It pushed us out of our comfort zone. The challenge also taught us a lot about stress management, communication and team spirit. What's more, given that the UTAC Challenge is renowned in the automotive sector, I believe that this experience and the knowledge we gained from it will benefit us in our future careers.
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