Fleet Complete issued the following announcement on March 6.

Fleet Complete is excited to announce its sponsorship of aUToronto – a student engineering team from University of Toronto, participating in the autonomous vehicle collegiate competition, AutoDrive Challenge. The goal of the competition is to develop a fully autonomous (level 3) passenger vehicle capable of self-driving in urban environments by 2020, encompassing tasks, such as intersection handling, pedestrian avoidance and smart navigation through city streets.

Designed and implemented by SAE International and General Motors, AutoDrive Challenge provides a rare opportunity for professional development and educational experience of engineering students from eight elect universities across North America. University of Toronto and University of Waterloo are the only two Canadian schools selected to compete, facing off competitors like Virginia Tech, Michigan Technological University and Texas A&M University.

Over the course of the next three years, aUToronto will be autonomizing the Chevrolet Bolt EV, joining the ranks of the frontrunners in research and industry. The team will focus on diverse real-life applications of sensing technologies, computing platforms, software design, and implementing advanced computation methods, such as computer vision, pattern recognition, machine learning, artificial intelligence, sensor fusion, and autonomous vehicle controls. Having specially designed and built a virtual simulation environment, they will test the car’s performance in a variety of situations for optimal results.

“It’s pretty rare for students to have access to self-driving cars for experiments, so this is a really unique opportunity,” says Keenan Burnett, Technical Team Lead of aUToronto. “The self-driving industry is really hot right now. If you are a software engineer or a mechanical engineer who has some practical experience in this area, I think that makes you an attractive applicant for a job. AutoDrive enables us to do that, plus it’s just a lot of fun.”

Sponsorship support from companies like Fleet Completeenable a more well-rounded professional development of the aUToronto members, equipping them with the resources needed to realize their potential on a whole new level. The team is comprised of programmers, designers, and engineers who will push the boundaries of autonomous vehicles in the industry and academia for many years to come.

“The future of autonomous driving is fast-approaching, and we at Fleet Complete follow closely the innovative developments in the field,” comments Alan Fong, Chief Technology Officer at Fleet Complete. “Driverless cars will forge new safety canons for the connected vehicle industry and bring new business models that will change the face of urban mobility and commercial fleets. What these young engineers are endeavouring is a phenomenal feat, and we are proud to support them in this challenging competition.”

About aUToronto

aUToronto is University of Toronto’s only student led self-driving car team. We are one of eight collegiate teams from across North America, designing, developing and building an SAE Level 3 autonomous passenger vehicle in order to compete in the GM/SAE AutoDrive Challenge.

aUToronto’s vision is to emerge as one of the world’s leaders in student-designed autonomous technologies. We hope to accomplish these goals by designing a Level 3 Autonomous Self-Driving Car by 2020 that will emerge victorious in the GM/SAE AutoDrive Challenge. Through this process, we hope to equip engineering student members with the knowledge, experience and skills needed to become future leaders in the self-driving car industry and raise our partners’ profiles as leaders in autonomous driving. For more information, please visit www.autodrive.utoronto.ca

About SAE/GM AutoDrive Challenge

SAE International and General Motors have partnered to headline sponsor AutoDrive Challenge™, the latest of SAE International’s Collegiate Design Series. This newly established, three-year autonomous vehicle competition will task students to develop and demonstrate a full autonomous driving passenger vehicle. The technical goal of the competition is to navigate an urban driving course in an automated driving mode as described by SAE Standard (J3016) level 4 definition by year three. For more information, please visit www.sae.org/attend/student-events/autodrive-challenge

Original source: https://www.fleetcomplete.com/en/news/driverless-cars-by-2020/