Year 3 Competition

The On-Road Safety Evaluation (ORSE) event is available to teams who have passed Vehicle Technical inspection and must be completed before the team will be permitted to move on to other dynamic events. ORSE is designed to evaluate the vehicle’s dynamic handling characteristics and verify the ability of the vehicle to safely perform dynamic maneuvers and stop within a safe distance. Vehicles will be evaluated to make sure that no interference with the steering or suspension system exists, that the anti-lock brake system (ABS) is functioning, and that the vehicle exhibits stability at high and low speeds. Failure to pass this event will prevent a team from participating in additional dynamic events.

Before entering the ORSE event, teams must first pass Vehicle Technical inspection. Before proceeding to ORSE for the first time, a shakedown will be driven by a designated GM Driver (such as a teams’ GM Mentor) with a student permitted to ride in the passenger seat. On-Road Safety will also be driven by an ORSE GM Driver with a student permitted to ride in the passenger seat. If a vehicle fails to pass any portion of ORSE, it will be returned to the garage.

This event will evaluate each team’s vehicle’s ability to accelerate from Initial Vehicle Movement (IVM) to 60mph and from 50 mph to 70 mph. These are standard metrics used across the industry. These metrics are two of many that help to determine the “feel” and customer experience of the vehicle.

The objective of this event is to assess the vehicle’s drive quality. Assessments will be based on vehicle performance in two different areas: Static Acceleration Targets and Character Targets, as defined below.

• Static Acceleration Targets (ARM)
  • Ability of the vehicle to match the target Acceleration Response Map (ARM), which defines desired acceleration target curves at various accelerator pedal positions starting from zero vehicle speed.

• Character Targets (t-ARM)
  • Attributes of the vehicle powertrain’s response behavior, regardless of performance capability. In short, is the vehicle comfortable to drive, and does it behave in an acceptable and predictable manner?
  • Ability to match targets for transient response and response delay at various accelerator pedal positions from zero vehicle speed.

• AVL DRIVE Assessment
  • AVL DRIVE will be used to process and score the following maneuvers: part load acceleration at constant pedals, drive away, and tip-in at decel / tip-out

This event will evaluate a team’s ability to introduce calibratable values into the vehicle system to evaluate diagnostics and vehicle mitigation behaviors. This event specifically applies to the introduction of temperature derate values for a chosen electric drive unit (EDU). This is standard work routinely performed by vehicle program engineers and is used to ensure vehicle software, and mitigation strategies are performing as intended. Additionally, it is important for teams to ensure the torque derating is smooth and unobtrusive to the driver.

This event is an evaluation of the consumer appeal of team vehicles. Judges will assume the role of a prospective customer and will perform a rigorous evaluation of all aspects of the team vehicles that pertain to consumer appeal. Just like a consumer at a dealership about to buy a new car, the judges will evaluate the cockpit, gauges, displays, human-machine interaction (HMI) or infotainment features, driving experience, interior and exterior of the vehicle. The evaluation will consider both form and function and will include driving the vehicle to dynamically evaluate the consumer experience of the vehicle.

The Lateral Control Calibration Event enables teams to conduct limited CAV lateral control system (lane centering control and automated parking) development activities, including real-time calibration, on a GM closed course test track.

The Driver Monitoring System Evaluation Event is an absolutely scored event that will measure the team’s capability to determine the driver's attention state while prospectively driving the vehicle and provide warnings for the driver to resume attention to the road. This event will be conducted statically without a drive.

This event has been designed to evaluate the Vehicle to Everything (V2X) connectivity capabilities of team vehicles. The teams were challenged to integrate V2X systems into vehicles and use the V2X information to improve longitudinal control capabilities. Teams will take part in a closed course test where the LYRIQ will attempt to navigate a sequence of signalized connected intersection with real-time Signal Phase and Timing (SPaT) and MAP information. The vehicle is expected to successfully interpret SPaT and MAP data. The data should be used to calculate the time and distance to the stop line.

The ACC feature evaluation event is intended to evaluate team developed ACC feature performance beyond the energy consumption evaluation conducted at CARB. This test includes four phases. Phase I verifies the presence and functionality of the required indicators, driver interfaces, & driver overrides in the teams CACC feature. Phase II will verify all basic CACC functionality while following a target vehicle. Phase III is conducted to gather the data needed for the VTS Evaluation.

The flagship test (Phase IV) will be conducted using the capabilities developed at Argonne National Laboratory as a part of Argonne’s Vehicle Advanced Technologies Assessment & Research (AVATAR) program. The target vehicle will be instrumented with the Longitudinal Automated Replay System (LARS) enabling this vehicle to follow a predefined drive cycle. The reliability and repeatability of this system ensures all teams are exposed to similar test conditions. The drive cycle that will be uploaded to LARS  will consist of the first 505 seconds of the Urban Dynamometer Driving Schedule (UDDS) followed by the Highway Fuel Economy Driving Schedule (HWFET).