Students From Across US Test Self-Driving CAT Vehicle at UA

George Gunter (left) and Rahul Bhadani (right) show the data from a more advanced sensor attached to the roof of the "cognitive and autonomous test vehicle." The goal of their project was to get similarly accurate data with a sensor that records less data

Nine college students worked on programming the UA's Cognitive and Autonomous Test driverless vehicle on Aug. 8 as part of the National Science Foundation's Research Experiences for Undergraduates program.

Larry Head, UA professor of systems and industrial engineering and an expert in connected and automated driving vehicle systems, headed up the REU program this year, alongside Tamal Bose, professor and head of the UA Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Alongside UA students, participants from institutions such as Seattle University, Monmouth College, Lipscomb University and Western Colorado State University worked with the CAT driverless vehicle. The objective was to see if the students could program a basic sensor to gather enough data to allow the car to travel, but not too much for a computer to process quickly.