UK based OxTS has provided the TUfast racing team with an RT4003 inertial navigation system and base station.
The student racing team, from the Technical University (TU) of Munich, consists of students from all engineering disciplines who have come together to develop an autonomous racing car and an electric racing car. Races take place across Europe throughout the year, with a specific category for driverless cars having been introduced in 2016.
OxTS provides an RT4003 Inertial Navigation System and Base Station to equip the autonomous racing car team with precise localization. This enables not only mapping of pre-planned routes but also combines speed and acceleration measurements for real-time navigation. In addition, the car uses lidar and camera technology with software algorithms tuned by the engineers, themselves, to maximize performance in challenging environments.
The RT4003 inertial navigation systems helps with: aligning lidar data to vehicle position using the INS-offset feature; eliminating time stamp distortion associated with each lidar scanned point and associated vehicle position; overlaying vehicle position relative to pre-mapped routes; and stable position updates (low noise comes from combined IMU/GNSS engine) during high dynamic driving maneuvers with high lateral and longitudinal acceleration.
OxTS and its German Partners DTC Solutions have sponsored the autonomous racing car team in the Formula Student competition in Europe since 2018.
