Winner Crowned at Autonomous Challenge in Vegas

As the University of Alabama prepares for tonight’s College Football Playoff Championship at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, the school can claim a championship in another sport. The university and its partners from Politecnico di Milano from Italy won the Autonomous Challenge at CES in Las Vegas.

Team PoliMOVE won the first-ever head-to-head autonomous racecar competition in Las Vegas with a top speed of 173 mph.

The competition was organized by Indianapolis-based Energy Systems Network, which is trying to speed the commercialization of fully autonomous vehicles and deployments of advanced driver-assistance systems.

The team competed at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway against four other teams to win the $150,000 grand prize. It was held in conjunction with the Consumer Electronics Show.

“We came to CES this week, the world’s most influential technology innovation event, to showcase to the world how this competition is catapulting autonomous technologies forward,” said Paul Mitchell, president and CEO, Energy Systems Network. “We’re harnessing the power of prize competitions to attract the best and the brightest minds from around the globe to further the state-of-the art technology in safety and performance of automated vehicles and the teams did just that today with another historic competition.”

ESN says nine teams from eight countries, representing 19 universities, were in Las Vegas for the competition.

Black & Gold Autonomous Racing, a partnership between Purdue University and United States Military Academy at West Point, were in Las Vegas, but did not qualify for the final competition.