Photo By Christopher Estrada | A participant in the Self-Drive challenge adjusts his team’s vehicle during the 32nd...... read more read more
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ROCHESTER, Mich.— Student engineers from across the globe gathered earlier this month at Oakland University for the 32nd annual Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC), a robotics competition that continues to serve as a training ground for future autonomous ground vehicle talent.
The competition brings together collegiate robotics teams to tackle a series of unmanned mobility challenges, providing participants with an experience that reflects real-world applications in the ground vehicle industry. The competition attracts worldwide participation, with teams hailing from India, Japan, Egypt and Turkey, to name a few.
The event has long been a partnership between academia, government, and the metro Detroit automotive sector, with engineers and scientists from the U.S. Army Ground Vehicle Systems Center (GVSC) volunteering as judges and mentors.
This year’s IGVC was split up into Self Drive, AutoNav, and a design competition. Each offered the opportunity to earn points toward individual and overall awards. Self-Drive challenges teams to demonstrate autonomous navigation on street-legal roads, while AutoNav challenges teams to maneuver their vehicles through an obstacle course via GPS navigation without human input.
For this year’s event both the AutoNav and the Self-Drive categories featured the same chassis, either commercially bought or built from scratch. Some teams utilized a mix of the two in their vehicles.
Many teams utilized government-developed software platforms such as the Army Robotic Common Software (ARCS), which allows them to build on standardized frameworks used in active military research.
Ahead of the final competition, teams spend a couple days finalizing their vehicles, running through software iterations, and completing a series of qualification rounds proctored by seasoned robotics volunteers.
Among the notable stories this year was the return of Virginia Tech’s robotics team to the final round — its first such appearance in more than 15 years. The team had previously excelled during the 1990s and early 2000s but had been absent from the competition until recently.
“We’re super glad that in our second year of returning to IGCV, we were able to make it through the qualifiers,” said John Shebey, Virginia Tech’s team captain. “It certainly stung last year when we weren’t able to break through, so we made it our goal to really make our mark this year, and we’re all happy about our results.”
Bernard Theisen, division chief for Ground Vehicle Robotics at GVSC and a longtime supporter of IGVC since 2002, emphasized the global impact the event has on the next generation of engineers.
“These student engineers are travelling from all over the world to share their knowledge and expertise with a community of like-minded enthusiasts,” Theisen said. “The continued participation of these collegiate teams develops their skills in ways that last throughout their careers, and so we’re always glad to see both new and familiar faces showing up each year."
The University of Oklahoma claimed the top prize for the third consecutive year, taking home the prestigious Lescoe Cup, named in honor of IGVC co-founder and former GVSC robotics engineer Paul Lescoe.
With planning already underway for the 2026 event, Theisen said he hopes more teams — both domestic and international — will take advantage of the opportunity offered by metro Detroit’s robust ground vehicle and mobility ecosystem.
| Date Taken: | 06.25.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 06.25.2025 10:56 |
| Story ID: | 501469 |
| Location: | ROCHESTER, MICHIGAN, US |
| Web Views: | 98 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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