ION 6th AUTONOMOUS SNOWPLOW COMPETITION Winners announced The (US) Institute of Navigation Satellite Division announced from Manassas, Virginia, on 17 February the winners of the 6 th Annual ION Autonomous Snowplow Competition during the Saint Paul Winter Carnival. This event was held at Rice Park in downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota, in conjunction with the 130th Saint Paul Winter Carnival. Sponsored by The ION Satellite Division and held in cooperation with the ION North Star Section, the ION Annual Autonomous Snowplow Competition is an international event open to college and university students, as well as the general public. It challenges teams to design, build, and operate a fully autonomous snowplow using state of the art navigation and control technologies to rapidly, accurately and safely clear a designated path of snow. Ten teams participated during the unseasonably warm four day competition, each team using state of the art navigation systems such as GNSS, differential GPS, LIDAR, optical navigation systems, inertial instruments, magnetic sensors, and ultra-wide band radio reflectors. Teams were judged based upon their cumulative scores earned throughout the multiple competition phases. Teams included students, partners from private industry and faculty advisors from Case Western Reserve University; Dunwoody College of Technology; North Dakota State University, University of British Columbia, The University of Michigan, Dearborn, The University of Minnesota, and the University of St. Thomas. First place was awarded to the University of Michigan, Dearborn’s team Yeti 6.0. The first place prize included $7,000 and a Golden Snow Globe Award. Second place was awarded to Case Western Reserve team OTTO X. The second place prize included $4,000 and a Silver Snow Globe Award. Third place was awarded to the Dunwoody College of Technology’s team. The third place prize included $2,000 and a Bronze Snow Globe Trophy. In addition, the first place team, University of Michigan, Dearborn’s Team Yeti 6.0 will be invited to display their winning snowplow during ION GNSS+ 2016 conference to be held from 12 – 16 September next in Portland, Oregon.
Sponsors of the Sixth Annual ION Autonomous Snowplow Competition included Lockheed Martin Corporation, ASTER Labs, Inc., Honeywell International Inc., Orbital ATK, Inc., The Toro Company, SICK, Inc. Polaris Industries, Inc., US Bancorp, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX), Deere and Company (John Deere), UTC Aerospace Systems, Proto Labs, Inc., Nuts and Volts Magazine. The Seventh Annual ION Autonomous Snowplow Competition will be held in January 2017 at the Saint Paul Winter Carnival, St. Paul, Minnesota. For more information readers are invited to see: www.autosnowplow.com.
