September 22, 2022
We would like to introduce one of our amazing Waterloo Engineering Student Design Teams, the MIT-PITT-RW team.
MIT-PITT-RW (formerly WATORACE) is a collaboration between graduate and undergraduate students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Pittsburgh (PITT), Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), and the University of Waterloo.
The team was formulated to program a race car to drive autonomously around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as part of the Indy Autonomous Challenge. The team is divided into subteams focused on Perception, State Estimation (Tracking + Localization), Behaviour (Path Planning + Controls + Vehicle Modeling), Integration, Simfra (Simulation + Infrastructure), as well as Bizops (Business + Operations).
What project(s) is the design team currently working on?
MIT-PITT-RW is currently developing software for an autonomous racecar to travel at speeds around 200 mph. A future race will occur as part of CES 2023 at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. CES is the most influential tech event in the world — the proving ground for breakthrough technologies and global innovators. This is where the world's biggest brands do business and meet new partners, and the sharpest innovators hit the stage.
What competition(s) has/have the Team been a part of recently or in the past?
The first competition that the joint team participated within was the Indy Autonomous Challenge. The race occurred on October 23, 2021 with over $1 Million USD awarded in prizes.
MIT-PITT-RW was also featured at the Consumer Electronics Show as part of the Autonomous Challenge at CES 2022. The event was focused on a multi-agent passing competition between cars. The final race occurred on January 7, 2022 with $200,000 USD awarded in prizes.
What are the benefits of being part of a Student Design Team?
Our team spends a lot of time together, discussing codes over lunch, working on problem sets, and just hanging out, playing board games. We’re here to learn and support each other, and to also build friendships that last.
Our teammates go on to top companies like Motional, Waymo, Aptiv, Tesla, and Zoox. Along with our additional sponsors Oracle, Mobilitas, Waymo, the ecosystem we live in is inspirational and shows a clear path to being a successful engineer in the autonomous vehicle space.
All members are also invited to fully expensed trips (Flights, Accommodation, Food) to various locations around the U.S. to work on the physical racecar, or to spectate during final races.
How can interested students join this team?
Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. Vsit the MIT-PITT-RW website to learn more about the team and open positions. Current open positions on the team include:
- State Estimation - Responsible for accurately estimating vehicle pose and vehicle kinematic state using a combination of GPS, IMU, camera, etc.
- Perception - Ensure accurate, fast, and robust perception during high speed racing, which includes sensors like camera, LiDAR and radar, while dealing with noisy, uncertain, and incomplete information.
- Simulation - Responsible for designing and executing varied and comprehensive race scenarios and unit testing across the entire system
- Controls - Use traditional control as well as model predictive control to find safe (yet aggressive) acceleration and steering commands at over 150 mph!
- Infrastructure - Ensure the integrity and dependability of our entire infrastructure, including ROS, environment, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, testing.
- Path Planning - Develop multi-agent planning algorithms to maneuver around other vehicles at similar speeds
- Biz Ops - Work on cool business initiatives, to support the technical teams. Roles include Sponsor Management, Marketing, Event planning, etc.