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Blue and Gold Volume XIII No. 2 August 2008

To read the article in its orginal production click here.

“Anassa IV,” an autonomous ground vehicle developed, designed, programmed, and created by Bluefield State College students, won the world championship in “Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC) Autonomous Challenge” at the recent IGVC event at Oakland University, MI. The four-day competition attracted 36 entries from institutions of higher education in the U.S. and abroad.

“Approximately 30 Bluefield State College students were involved in the development of Anassa IV,” observed Dr. Robert Riggins, BSC Professor of Electrical Engineering Technology. BSC students Justin Milam, Brad Fields, Bryan Lemon, Louis McAllister, Toni Villanueva, and James Cardwell, and 2007 BSC graduate Justin Stiltner participated in the 16th annual IGVC event, May 30-June 2. BSC student John Browning was also actively involved by telephone during the event.

“Our students were under a tremendous amount of pressure during the competition,” Riggins continued. “They averaged only about three hours of sleep a night because they focused so hard on what they were trying to accomplish.” The team made adjustments on the vehicle, its programming, and its cameras, hoping the changes would translate into optimum performance. “I assigned two team members to find an algorithm that would permit the vehicle to make a 180 degree turn that was required on the course and we continued to tweak everything up until a few minutes before our final run, just prior to the 5 p.m. deadline on the final day of the event. We weren’t certain if our changes and adjustments would be successful because there was no time to test them,” Riggins stated.

“Our robot was a crowd favorite because it was the fastest in the competition and had the ability to process a large amount of information through distributive computing,” he said. “However, some of the officials at the competition said the course was too difficult to complete.” As ANASSA progressed through the traps and over the bridges, the crowd in attendance took note. “When our vehicle began to pass the points where other teams had stopped, our students really got excited,” the BSC faculty member recounted. “When ANASSA went farther than any other team before us, our student started to jump on my back and shout. Finally, when ANASSA weaved through a gauntlet of barrels and shot across the finish line, the crowd cheered just as if we were at a football game.”

The BSC students were then approached by representatives from several top defense contractors and members of the US Army Tank-Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARMAC), which was a primary sponsor of the competition. “Our team’s success has opened a door of opportunity for our students and for our college,” Riggins observed. “One of our students is considering a job offer from TARMAC. The fact that Bluefield State College was the smallest school in the competition and was one of only a very few college or universities there without an engineering graduate school makes our victory even more meaningful.”