Rocker Robotics — Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition

May 1, 2024 · 1 min read
projects

Autonomy and Controls Technical Lead (2022–23), then team member (2023–24) for South Dakota Mines’ entry in the International Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition.

Results: Won Rookie of the Year award and placed in the design competition.

Technical contributions:

  • ROS-based sensor integration (LIDAR, GPS, camera)
  • Lane detection via computer vision
  • Path planning with A*
  • Trajectory tracking with Model Predictive Path Integral (MPPI) Control
  • Frontier-based autonomous exploration for course navigation
Bennet Outland
Authors
Graduate Researcher
Doctoral student at the University of Colorado Boulder, Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences. Research in differential game theory, safe multi-agent systems, and computational astrodynamics — with a focus on algorithms that are tractable enough to run onboard while providing formal guarantees.