Starting with the March 7 Circuit Launch event, we’re going to be adding an outdoors track for cars using GPS or otherwise wanting more of a challenge than the indoor track. Although the outdoor track will be open all day (starting at 10:00am) of the event, the formal competition on that track will only begin after the indoor event has concluded, at 3:00pm, and conclude at 5:00pm.
You can sign up for it here.
The below shows roughly where the track will be, in the parking lot at the side of Circuit Launch. There will be white tape marking the outside and inside of the track and cones placed at the corners. More details on the track and challenges (random cone obstacles, etc), will be announced on the day of the event.
To aid in GPS-guided navigation, we will have two RTK GPS base stations broadcasting. One is an Emlid Reach RS+, the other is a Swiftnav Piksi2. If you want to use either of these, you car must have a compatible “rover” GPS mounted on it. We recommend the Emlid Reach M+ (it can also work without a base station)
Regular GPS units will work too, of course, but will not be as precise as RTK GPS. But if that’s all you have, bring it and see how well it does!
BTW, if you’ve never tried GPS-guided autonomous cars, we recommend you start with the ArduRover project, which has been used successfully for years at the Sparkfun Autonomous Vehicle Competition (RIP), and uses the same Pixhawk autopilot hardware as many drones.
