UniBO Motorsport achieves an amazing 3rd place in the Milanese driverless prototype competition
Bologna, January 12th 2025 – in the days from December 16th to December 19th 2024, took place in Milan, at the Allianz MiCo, Milan Convention Centre, the 22nd edition of the F1TENTH: the annual competition between driverless prototypes with autonomous driving. In this occasion, UniBo Motorsport was awarded an important 3rd place.
The F1TENTH it’s a competition that takes place during international robotics and automation conferences, such as ICRA and IROS. The competition is divided in three days: the first, on December 16th, saw the prototypes test themselves in free practices, during which the team was able to familiarize with the drawn circuit, analyzing every characteristic, and to map the path. The second day, divided between December 17th and December 18th, was dedicated to the actual qualifications. The prototype of the University of Bologna was able to run alone on the track, and lap time and reliability were taken into account. From the combination of this data was obtained the qualifications ranking: the team from Bologna obtained a 3rd place in the Fastest Lap Rank, earning 10 points with a time of 7.314. While an amazing 2nd place in the Consecutive Laps Rank was achieved by completing 41 consecutive laps and earning 11 points. The day ended with a more than satisfactory 2nd place in the Final Rank with 21 total points, with only 3 points from the first ranked driverless.
On the third and last day took place the actual competitions, a series of challenges head to head (1 vs 1) with a double elimination. In particular, UniBo Motorsport was the winner in the Bracket 2 against the LamarRacing team, qualifying for the second semifinal, that unfortunately saw the defeat against the team of UniMore. However, the redemption didn’t take long to arrive: during the match for the assignment of the third place the UniBo prototype was able to make a phenomenal overtaking on the ForzaETH team, bringing the team from Bologna the victory of the bronze medal with an excellent 3rd place.
In this final phase of the competition, although speed was fundamental, the commitment in the elaboration of efficient algorithms was decisive in order to be able to make the crucial overtaking of the advantage. To this regard, it was decisive the work of the Motion Planning department, that in little time managed to develop a robust and spectacular algorithm without which the results obtained during the competition wouldn’t have been possible. To succed in this undertaking our students have completely revolutionized the hardware part of the vehicle, allowing it to be more stable when cornering and facilitating the work of the sensors.
It’s in light of this that the whole team wants to express its thanks to all of those who contributed to the achievement of such a good result. The students, increasingly prepared, motivated and eager for good results, are assiduously committed to improving themselves. A thanks in this occasion also certainly goes to the companies that continue to support these activities and the students.
In particular, the participation to the competition F1TENTH was possible also thanks to the support of Regione Emilia-Romagna, as part of the project Rif_pa2024-22610/RER titled “RACE FOR THE FUTURE – STUDENTS MOBILITY COMPETITIONS @UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA”, n° 1, sub-project “F1TENTH (Formula 1:10)”, n°4, CUP J56F2400012000.
UniBo Motorsport can’t wait to celebrate its successes also in the future with all of you.
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