Best project award for ESTACA at the UTAC – Vehicle of the Future Challenge
A team of four ESTACA 4th year students took part in the UTAC Vehicle of the Future challenge to design an autonomous vehicle on 12 May 2022. The jury of experts from the automotive sector awarded them the prize for the best project and first prize in the “automated parking” category. This student competition for new automated and connected mobility was organised with the support of the Société des Ingénieurs de l’Automobile (SIA) and 11 schools took part.
A unique challenge for self-driving vehicles
This is the only challenge in Europe for self-driving vehicles in a real environment, and the competition aims to get student teams working on the full or partial design of a vehicle or on functions related to autonomy and safety.
Developing technologies for more autonomous, better communicating and safer vehicles lies at the heart of today’s transport challenges.
As part of the competition, ten schools carried out simulations or used autonomous systems on a vehicle, for automated routes or parking manoeuvres: ESTACA, Polytech Orléans, ESIGELEC, IPSA, ENSTA Paris, ENSTA Bretagne, IUT Orsay, University of Orléans, ESME Sudria, University of Technology Belfort-Montbéliard, ECE.
There were three events: automated urban course, automated parking, free style event. They were judged by a jury of experts, on both the project and the technical implementation. Following presentations and technical tests, the student teams offered demonstrations on special tracks.
ESTA’PARK team wins honorary prize for best project and 1st prize for Automated Parking
ESTA’PARK is a team of 4 4th year students, which took part in the Vehicle of the Future challenge in the “Automated parking” category. As part of their 4th year academic project, they developed work started in 2021 to design an automated parking system (‘valet parking’), by developing algorithms and simulation.
Supervised by ESTACA’s teacher-researchers, the students first had to plan a route and programme a trajectory. They then defined an obstacle and speed management strategy, modelled the course and finally, used the proposed solution on the ESTACA Twizy for full-scale testing.
On the day of the challenge, the ESTACA vehicle first had to pass the vehicle approval phase by the UTAC. Then the students presented their project in the auditorium in front of the jury, industrial partners and all the participating schools. The ESTA’PARK team then demonstrated the automated parking capabilities of their vehicle on the track.
This phase had the whole team and their teachers in a cold sweat, as last-minute technical problems almost prevented the vehicle from running! But they managed to deal with the breakdown effectively and with the help of Faar Industry ultimately win the event.
In fact, the ESTACA team won two prizes: the honorary prize for the best project awarded by Luc Marbach, President of the SIA (Société des Ingénieurs de l’Automobile) and 1st prize for the best project in the automated parking category.
