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Students from the University of Valladolid win the first edition of the SEAT Autonomous Driving Challenge

Release Date: 16 Nov 2017
  • The competition gave students from 7 Spanish universities the opportunity to develop completely autonomous driving functions
  • After six months of dedication, the participants competed in a final challenge organised at the Smart City Expo
  • The brand used the congress as a backdrop for showcasing its main contributions to future mobility
Barcelona, 16/11/2017. - The SEAT Autonomous Driving Challenge has a winner. After six months of hard work, AMUVAG, the team from the University of Valladolid, outperformed their competitors in the final challenge of this competition aimed at students with technical training in robotics to develop self-driving functions. The tied second place winners were team URBots, from the University Rovira i Virgili, and team Autopia from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, respectively.

The competition, promoted by CARNET, the first urban mobility research centre for the city of Barcelona with the collaboration of SEAT, Volkswagen Group Research and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC), seeks to reward young talent which is responsible for developing technology of the future. For this occasion, more than 50 students from 7 Spanish universities, divided into multi-disciplinary groups with guidance and orientation from renowned international experts, worked for six months on creating software that enables scale model vehicles to navigate themselves around an urban environment closed circuit.

“This first edition of the challenge has been a complete success. The competing projects were of an outstanding professional calibre, and the results can be used to real life autonomous driving algorithms” highlighted SEAT’s Head of Whole Vehicle & Chasis Development, Sven Schawe. He went on to say that “initiatives such as this one enable us to have direct contact with young talent and provide them with the ability to create this future mobility concept”.

The grand finale, at the Smart City Expo

The projects were put to the test in the final challenge, organised during the Smart City Expo World Congress 2017, for which CARNET created a closed driving circuit with an urban environment inspired by the city of Barcelona. The competing vehicles from each university had to overcome the challenging tasks which were devised, such as recognise the layout of the circuit, stay within lane markings, navigate around corners, straight lines and intersections, detect obstacles and park themselves. A panel made up of SEAT representatives, experts in robotics, prominent figures in the industry and professionals was responsible for choosing the best three projects.

SEAT at the Smart City Expo World Congress 2017

In addition to hosting the grand finale of the SEAT Autonomous Driving Challenge, the carmaker also took advantage of the Smart City Congress to showcase its own latest developments in future mobility:
  • SEAT Leon Cristobal, a concept car equipped with 6 advanced safety assistants whose functions can contribute to significantly reducing the main causes of traffic accidents caused by human factors which are responsible for 80% of all cases.
  • ‘About it’, the app developed by Metropolis:Lab that is set to become the new mobility companion in the city of Barcelona. Among other functions, it displays electric vehicle recharging points, bicing bike-sharing stations or black spots on city streets with the highest concentration of traffic accidents.
  • Virtual Mobility Lab, a simulation tool by CARNET that analyses and evaluates the impact of mobility projects in Barcelona and enables results to be extrapolated prior to implementing any pilot tests.
  • The fleet of 10 zero emission eMii prototypes, enabling the brand’s electric technology to be tested, and which are equipped with the Digital Access solution giving users access to their cars via their Smartphone.
All of these initiatives fall within the framework of the Barcelona City Council’s Urban Mobility Plan guidelines, aimed at achieving mobility that is safe, efficient, sustainable and equitable.
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