REU Project: Autonomous RC Rally Car for Jump and Drift Racing

Served as an AEOP Summer Robotics Research Intern at the Center for Autonomy at UT Austin, participating in the AEOP LLMs for Safe Navigation REU under the guidance of Dr. Ufuk Topcu, Dr. Christian Ellis, and PhD Student Rwik Rana.

• Architected a low-cost, 1/16 scale autonomous RC car using ROS2 to create a modular research platform for complex drift and jump navigation studies.
• Executed the complete electromechanical assembly by designing and soldering custom circuit boards to successfully power and integrate all components, including a Raspberry Pi 5/Jetson Nano and motor controllers.
• Programmed a robust low-level controller in a C++/ROS2 software stack to achieve precise Ackerman steering and throttle control for the vehicle.
• Successfully established full teleoperation capabilities and utilized the F1Tenth simulator to validate SLAM and control algorithms, preparing the platform for fully autonomous operation.

Internship Gallery