U of T Engineering’s self-driving car team, aUToronto, has placed first at the 2024 SAE AutoDrive Challenge™ II. This is the team’s sixth first-place finish in seven years and a return to the top of the podium after placing second in last year’s competition.
Ten teams from universities across the United States and Canada competed at the Mcity Test Facility in Ann Arbor, Mich., from June 4 to 10.
“Through the AutoDrive Challenge, we are preparing the next generation of engineers to head into the industry, to keep pushing towards the challenging goal of reaching Level 4 autonomous driving,” says Professor Tim Barfoot (UTIAS), one of the academic advisors to the aUToronto team.
“The team did another excellent job this year.”
They approached the third year of the competition by going back to first principles to ensure they had a reliable and robust system, says Kelvin Cui (EngSci 2T2 + PEY, UTIAS MASc student), the team’s principal.
Cui joined aUToronto last fall after five years with the University of Toronto Formula Racing team, where he founded the ‘driverless’ division.
“We looked at what was going to get us the most points at competition and made sure that we were not overbuilding our system and adding too much complexity,” he says.
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