UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO PROFILE
In 1957, the University of Waterloo opened its doors to 74 engineering students with co-operative education as its cornerstone. Today, with more than 42,000+ students attending annually, Waterloo is #1 in Canada for experiential learning and employer-student connections.
Consistently ranked Canada’s most innovative university, Waterloo is home to advanced research and teaching in science and engineering, mathematics and computer science, health, environment, arts and social sciences. From quantum computing and nanotechnology to clinical psychology and health sciences research, Waterloo brings ideas and brilliant minds together, inspiring innovations with real impact today and in the future.
As home to the world's largest post-secondary co-operative education program, Waterloo embraces its connections to the world and encourages enterprising partnerships in learning, research, and commercialization. With campuses and education centres on four continents, and academic partnerships spanning the globe, Waterloo is shaping the future of the planet.
Find out more about the University of Waterloo at https://uwaterloo.ca/about/who-we-are/waterloo-facts.
Background
Through this RFP, we are requesting an Autonomous Golf Cart (‘AGC’) that is instrumented with onboard sensors and a programmable controller that can control all the degrees of freedom of the AGC. This AGC will serve as a full-scale testbed in the University of Waterloo to validate the research groups’ novel motion planning and control algorithms for Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) in practical situations. This testbed will pave the way towards the final goal of safe and efficient AVs in pedestrian-rich zones and complex on-road scenarios.
The AGC needs to be fully electric to make it suitable for both indoor and outdoor operations. It also needs to have an all-weather car-like body and accessories for field tests in different weather conditions.
The onboard sensors need to perceive the AGC’s surrounding environment with acceptable accuracy for real-time decision-making and control. Therefore, the AGC must be equipped with all the sensors required for automated driving like a Laser scanner, Camera, GPS, and IMU, and computer/processors to process information obtained from the vehicle sensors and support subsequent decision-making during our real-world experiments.
The programmable controller needs to allow for the quick and iterative deployment of our AV algorithms, maximizing the time efficiency of their evaluation, testing, and optimization.
The operation and maintenance of the AGC needs to be safe, easy, and cost-effective. The final platform is required to be delivered with comprehensive training and related documentation for maintenance and technical support.
The budget for this purchase is capped at $147,000 CAD, plus HST, and the final platform is expected to be delivered by January 21, 2022.
Questions regarding this Request for Proposal must be submitted in writing (via email) to the RFP Contact Person as follows:
Christine Wagner, Procurement Specialist – Research; Procurement and Contract Services
200 University Avenue West
University of Waterloo, East Campus 2
Waterloo ON N2L 5Z5
Email: cpwagner@uwaterloo.ca or, procure@uwaterloo.ca
