UA Professor, Doctoral Student Contribute To Big Win In Autonomous Car Race

TUSCALOOSA, AL — The University of Alabama says a professor and doctoral student recently contributed to a historic race win between self-driving cars recently, with their vehicle reaching speeds no other autonomous car had before.

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Team PoliMOVE — formed by the Italian university Politecnico di Milano, — won the Autonomous Challenge at CES at the Las Vegas Motorspeedway, making it the first head-to-head autonomous racecar competition champion. What's more, in the lead-up to the race, PoliMOVE set the fastest speed record on an oval with a top speed of 173 mph.

Click here to watch the win following the big win.

Brandon Dixon, associate professor of computer science at UA and PoliMOVE member, along with UA computer science doctoral student Cole Frederick, both participated in the competition.

Dixon races as an amateur in open-wheel competition, while Frederick created the computer and software code that makes decisions for the car

Frederick, a native of Montevallo, is also credited with helping to rebuild UA’s competitive engineering racing team as an undergraduate.

PoliMOVE competed against five teams from five countries representing seven universities, winning the $150,000 grand prize. The goal of the competition, according to UA, is to advance technology that can speed the commercialization of fully autonomous vehicles and deployments of advanced driver-assistance systems, leading to increased safety and performance in motorsports as well as all modes of commercial transportation.

“The team as a whole shared a very strong desire to win, and our partnership was outstanding,” Dixon said. “This has been a good experience that has generated a lot of positive publicity for the University, so we will build off that momentum to bring on other faculty and students who want to join us.”

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