University of Groningen team in Self Driving Challenge

The University of Groningen participates in the fifth edition of the Self Driving Challenge this year. Six student teams compete in this five-month project to create algorithms for a self-driving cart.

The Self Driving Challenge, organised by the RDW ( the Netherlands Vehicle Authority), offers young talent the chance to develop in the field of smart mobility. It is a competition in which student teams compete with each other by racing self-driving vehicles on a circuit. Three electric karts are provided with all the necessary hardware and software to develop an autonomous-driving system. The students connect to this with their software to actually implement autonomy. The team that flawlessly races a self-driving vehicle around the circuit in the shortest time is the winner of the challenge.

The challenge officially began in Lelystad on the 8th of February, 2023. There, the students had a chance to familiarise themselves with the cart and experience riding in an electric car, driving at a speed of more than 200 km/h on the test track. De UG team consists of Rick Drenth, Emma Langeveld, Judith Oeben, Ginnie Renz, Maurice Stoffijn and Rutger Wuijster, and is led by professor in mechatronics Bayu Jayawardhana from the Faculty of Science and Engineering. The other teams are from Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Windesheim, University Twente, Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences and The Hague University of Applied Sciences.

The Groningen team is sponsored by the Jantina Tammes School of Digital Society, Technology and AI. The Jantina Tammes school further aims at embedding the competition into the broader context of challenge-based and multi-level education and will organize a range of academic and social events to spark and intensify the multidisciplinary and multi-faculty discussions on autonomous driving technologies.

The final race will be held on the 8th of June at the TT race circuit in Assen. For more information and news have a look at the website of Self Driving Challenge.