Students from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague (CVUT) have won an autonomous vehicle competition in Toronto, Canada, as announced yesterday by the university. Their vehicle demonstrated both high speed and a precise ability to recognize traffic signs and stay on the track, CVUT said.
The student team made it to the finals among 39 universities from around the world, beating rivals from universities in Seoul, California and Beijing. They won first place through a combination of speed and accuracy, which was key to meeting all the competition criteria. The students took home the QCar trophy and a cash prize.
The student team divided the roles according to their experience and hobbies. Jan Kohout and Jakub Macar were in charge of the driving dynamics of the car and track management, Ondrej Mikolas and Martin Bilik were in charge of image processing, and Jan Svancar and Otakar Kodytek carried out the software integration. Four other students were involved in the project, but were unable to fly to the final for financial reasons.
Based on this success, the faculty has decided to offer a new international course focusing on driving dynamics control and autonomous systems from 2025. The course will be open to students and teachers as well as industry professionals.
“Thanks to the competition, we realised that at least 38 universities worldwide would appreciate the know-how in control systems that is taught in Prague, specifically driving dynamics control and its role in autonomous vehicles,” said Tomas Hanis from the faculty’s department of control engineering. “That is why we have started preparing an intensive international course on this topic from 2025, in two versions – an academic one for university students and teachers and an industrial one for experts from companies.”
The Self-Driving Car Competition for Students took place from 10-12 July. Students had to go through the first round of the competition before going to Toronto. During the first round, they developed individual functions of the system and applied them in a virtual environment.
CVUT is one of the largest and oldest technical universities in Europe. Its Faculty of Electrical Engineering was founded in 1950; it now consists of 17 departments, and has long been ranked among the top five research institutions in the Czech Republic.
