About Princeton Autonomous Vehicle Engineering
From Princeton Autonomous Vehicle Engineering
Welcome to Princeton Autonomous Vehicle Engineering. This page goes into a little more depth to explain who we are, what the history of our group is, and what we do.
Contents |
Mission/Vision
PAVE is a group that provides resources and support for teams of students who want to do robotics research. The fundamental "founding principle" of PAVE is that all of this research, the leadership, organization, etc. is student driven. In the past, students have sought faculty guidance on technical matters, but all the motivation comes from students. In addition, this research is done in teams. No project can be an independent endeavor--that is what the university's independent work/thesis programs are designed for. PAVE exists to fill the niche in the community for rigorous robotics projects that require a interdisciplinary team.
Mission
Our mission as copied verbatim from our website, states. "Princeton Autonomous Vehicle Engineering (PAVE) is an undergraduate student-led research group at Princeton University dedicated to advancing and promoting the field of robotics through competitive challenges, self-guided research and community outreach while providing extracurricular learning and leadership opportunities to student members."
Competitive Challenges and Self-Guided Research
We encourage our teams to pursue projects that involve competition. Competitions set real-world deadlines and force teams to budget resources such as time, money, and materials to meet competition specifications.
Community Outreach
As a group that has experience in robotics and is part of an academic institution, it is almost a requirement of us to educate the community, both within Princeton and in the greater Princeton Area, "Outreach" covers a broad range of activities including social events such as study breaks and intra-university competitions, Research Presentations, School Visits, Lecture Series, and our FIRST Outreach/Mentor Program.
Extracurricular Learning and Leadership
Many of the concepts that are applied to robotics are not taught in the classroom. These may include advanced mathematical concepts, advanced computer algorithms and image processing techniques, etc. In addition, members that join early usually get exposed to key concepts in robotics that are not taught in introductory courses. Finally, there are usually problems that occur when applying concepts taught in the classroom to an actual robot. Members learn to deal with non-ideal situations and adapt theory to work in practice.
Although PAVE provides a formal leadership structure, as described below, the team has historically relied on members to take initiative. The overall structure has been kept relatively flat, and the group's formal leadership duties mostly consists of handling administrative tasks. The projects themselves usually have many components, each requiring some form of student leadership. Thus PAVE allows its members to gain valuable experience with managing an engineering project.
Vision
Recognition within the university and robotics communities
Program growth
Formation of business partnerships
Structure, Organization, and Leadership
More detailed information about these matters can be found on the Administrative page.
Team Structure
Leadership
Projects
For more detailed information about previous and current PAVE projects, see Challenges/Competitions.
More technical specifications for our robots/vehicles on the Vehicles page.
Prospect Twelve
IGVC 2010
History
PAVE has its origins in the Spring of 2004. A group of students in Professor Alain Kornhauser’s Transportation class watched the unfolding of the 2004 DARPA Grand Challenge, in which no team traveled more than 7.5 miles on the 150+ mile course, and decided that they could put together a DARPA Grand Challenge team at Princeton that could be competitive.
The Princeton team sucessfully competed in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge with Prospect Eleven, passing numerous qualification steps and seeding 10th out of 23 finalists.
Following the 2005 Challenge, the team continued to improve the hardware and software systems on Prospect Eleven.
In the Spring of 2006, the DARPA Urban Challenge was announced, to take place in October, 2007.
The PAVE website was launched in July, 2006.
Through the generosity of Ford Motor Company, PAVE acquired a vehicle, named Prospect Twelve, for the Urban Challenge in February, 2007
PAVE again passed several qualification procedures and was among 35 teams at the semifinals of the Urban Challenge.
After the Urban Challenge, DARPA announced no plans for further competitions. Instead, PAVE elected to compete in the 2008 Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC), held in May, 2008.
At the 2008 IGVC, PAVE won 1st place for our technical paper and design presentation, 4th place in a waypoint-following challenge and 6th place in the lane-following challenge. Overall, PAVE finished 3rd out of 47 teams and won rookie-of-the-year.
PAVE returned to the IGVC in 2009 with an entirely redesigned entry. The team won first place in the navigation (waypoint-following) challenge.
PAVE continues to work on Prospect Twelve, focusing on refining and improving the systems developed for the Urban Challenge. Our goal is to have Prospect Twelve successfully pass the NJ State drivers’ exam by April 2010, thereby becoming the first car to obtain its own drivers license.
