Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC)
The IGVC is an annual competition amongst universities to design and build a fully autonomous unmanned ground robotic vehicle. The vehicle must negotiate around an outdoor obstacle course under a prescribed time while staying within the 5 mph speed limit, and avoiding the obstacles on the track.
QuickSilver's ability to generate high torque in a small package using using only 12-48V DC is ideal for an autonomous vehicle's drive and steering systems.
QuickSilver has supported many universities in this exciting competition. SInce 2004, QuickSilver has been on every 1st place vehicle.
For more detail, see the IGVC web site (www.igvc.org).
University of Detroit Mercy (UDM) 2007-2008
UDM used 34HC-1 servo motors to independently control the wheels providing both drive and steering functions. Their design took first place in 2008!.
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2007: 3rd Place (CAPACITOPS)
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2008: 1st Place (CERATOPS)
In a thank you letter, Dr. Mohan Krishnan (ECE Department) wrote:
"In the past 2-3 years we have migrated to a modular integrated motor/gearbox/controller (Quicksilver) design so that we could then concentrate on other critical aspects of the vehicle such as the ability to sense the vehicle’s environment and intelligently navigate within it. The Quicksilver system has been everything we expected. The code that runs on the controllers is easy to write and very powerful, despite being low level. We have an excellent system to toggle between Remote Control and Robotic Drive that is all handled in the motor controllers. Programming the Robotic Drive was straight forward with the QuickSilver setup, due to the simple ASCII protocol the controllers speak. Physically the motors exceeded expectations in terms of robustness, as team members have been known to ride the vehicle around campus, sometimes two people on the vehicle at once."
Dr. Mohan Krishnan also wrote "When design discussions began on our vehicle entry for the 2008 IGVC competition, the Quicksilver system was an automatic choice for the drive train."
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
Reagle 2008
Embry-Riddle used two 34 frame servo motors to drive it's rear wheels. For their first year, the Reagle team did very well.
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2008: 6th Place
Dr. Charles F. Reinholtz wrote:
"Thank you for your continuing support of student design project team. As I’m sure you will see, Embry-Riddle is “on the rise,” especially in the automotive and autonomous systems communities. We are committed to making sure our students are familiar with the latest tools and technologies. The Quicksilver Controls equipment used by our student project teams is an excellent example of how we are working to ensure currency and relevance in our curriculum. I'm sure you will be happy to know that our team made a remarkably strong initial showing at the Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition. We finished in the money in every competition even and took second place in the Design Competition and fourth place overall. The University of Detroit University Mercy team won the overall competition this year. They also used Quicksilver motors, which I'm proud to say they adopted based on my positive experience with your products." - Dr Reinholtz
California State University–Northridge (CSUN)
Norman 2008
LinBot 2007-2008
MI-1 2006
CSUN uses two 34HC-2 servo motors through right angle gearboxes. Motor speeds are sent from a laptop running LabView to the QCI controllers via an RS232 serial connection. LabView also queries the controllers for motor position which is used to fine tune their navigation algorithm.
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2007: 7th Place
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2008: 9th Place (Norman)
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2008: 10th Place (LinBot)
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech)
Johnny-5 2004-2007
Virginia Tech used the same two 34HC-1 servo motors from 2004 to 2007 with outstanding results:
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2004: 1st Place
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2005: 3rd Place
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2006: 2nd Place
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2007: 1st Place
Two 34HC-1 servo motors are used to independently drive the rear wheels providing both drive and steering functions. Virginia Tech chose QuickSilver due to our high torque, compact design, and the ability to send simple move commands over our RS-232 serial link. QuickSilver's PVIA servo loop automatically adjusts motor torque to maintain the commanded velocity as Johnny-5 negotiates the variable terrain.
Virginia Tech 2004-2006 IGVC - Gemini
Virginia Tech's Gemini has used the same two 34HC-1 servo motors from 2004 to 2006 resulting in:
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2004: 3rd Place
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2005: 1st Place
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2006: 1st Place
The servo motors independently drive the front two wheels. Velocity commands are send from LabView via RS232. For operation without the navigation system, the motors are controlled remotely. This allows the vehicle to be easily moved for staging and maintenance.
Virginia Tech 2005, 2007 IGVC - Polaris
The Polaris vehicle features an articulated twin-body, four-wheel design using two 34HC-2 servo motors communicating over RS-232 to the main computer. This approach gave the Polaris team:
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2005: 2nd Place
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2007: 4th Place
Virginia Tech 2006-2007 IGVC - Chimera
Chimera uses two 34HC-1 to drive the rear wheels. Velocity commands are sent to the motors via the RS232 serial channel.
2006: 5th Place
Stoney Brook University - TNA 2007
The TNA team used two 34HC-3 servo motors to drive/steer the rear wheels and a 23H-5 servo motor to steer the front.
University of Colorado at Denver
(UC Denver)-PUMA 2004, 2006
The PUMA vehicle uses a unique steering/propulsion configuration. Each of its three wheels is independently driven and steered using three 34N-1 and three 23H-5 servo motors. The motors receive their motion commands via an RS-232 serial network.
2009 Competition
QuickSilver is still being used on many of the above team's 2009 entries and several new universities will use QuickSilver for the first time in the 2008 competition. We will update our web site once the competition is over.
QuickSilver wishes all the teams good luck!