U of Michigan Wins ION’s Fifth Autonomous Snowplow Competition

The University of Michigan’s snowplow earned the team $7,000 and a Golden Snow Globe Award. (Photo: Rory Thomas).

A team from the University of Michigan took home the fifth Institute of Navigation (ION) Satellite Division’s Autonomous Snowplow Competition. The competition was held Jan. 22-25 at Rice Park in downtown Saint Paul, Minn., in conjunction with the 129^th Saint Paul Winter Carnival.

Sponsored by The ION Satellite Division and held in cooperation with the ION North Star Section, the ION Annual Autonomous Snowplow Competition is a international event open to college and university students, as well as the general public, that challenges teams to design, build, and operate a fully autonomous snowplow using state of the art navigation and control technologies to rapidly, accurately and safely clear a designated path of snow.

Eight teams participated during the four day competition, each using state of the art navigation systems to plow two different snowfields.

Teams included students, partners from private industry and faculty advisors from Case Western Reserve University; Dunwoody College of Technology; North Dakota State University, University of Calgary, University of Michigan, Dearborn, and The University of Minnesota – Twin Cities.

The winning snowplow by the University of Michigan team. (Photo: Kristen Sheikh)

Teams were judged based upon their cumulative scores earned throughout the competition phases: 75% of the total score was based upon the plowing competition; and 25% of the total score was based upon the presentations and pre-event report.

• First place was awarded to the University of Michigan, Dearborn’s team “Zenith 2.0.” The first place prize included $7,000 and a Golden Snow Globe Award.
• Second place was awarded to the University of Michigan, Dearborn’s team “Yeti 5.0.” The second place prize included $4,000 and a Silver Snow Globe Award.
• Third place was awarded to the Dunwoody College of Technology’s team “Snow Devils 0101₂.” The third place prize included $2,000 and a Bronze Snow Globe Trophy.

In addition, the first place team, University of Michigan, Dearborn, has been invited to display the winning snowplow during ION GNSS+ 2015 conference Sept. 14-18 in Tampa, Florida.

Sponsors of the Fifth Annual ION Autonomous Snowplow Competition included Lockheed Martin Corporation, ASTER Labs, Inc., Honeywell, Inc., Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK), UTC Aerospace, US Bank, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SPACEX), The Toro Company, John Deere and Company, Proto Labs, Inc., Nuts and Volts Magazine, Servo Magazine, and Achievement Rewards for College Scientists Foundation (ARCS).

The competition received national media attention in addition to considerable local coverage helping to advance the goal of driving innovation for the future of autonomous robots.

The Sixth Annual ION Autonomous Snowplow Competition will be held in January 2016 at the Saint Paul Winter Carnival, St. Paul, Minnesota. For more information, visit www.autosnowplow.com.

inning team from the University of Michigan, Dearborn’s “Zenith 2.0.” From left:
Suneel Sheikh, Jason Spurlock, Benjamin Pollatz, Paraham Moassesi, Scott Zwally, Narasimhamurthi (Nattu) Natarajan (team advisor).