CAuDri-Challenge

CAuDri-Challenge 2026 - Pre-Event Information

2026-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

Where?

The 2026 CAuDri-Challenge is hosted at the Fakultät Technik, DHBW Stuttgart, Lerchenstraße 1, 70174 Stuttgart. It can be reached conveniently from Linden Museum bus station, which is served by Bus 40/42 from Stuttgart main station.

When?

The event opens on Saturday 08.05.2026 for participants only. Spectator are welcome to the competitions, which will be held on Sunday 09.05.2026. Please refer to the two schedules for specifics.

Participants

Friday, 08.05:

09:00 - Arrival
10:30 - Open-Track Test Runs
12:00 - Lunch
13:00 - Team Meeting
13:30 - Open-Track Test Runs
14:00 - Scheduled Test Runs

Saturday, 09.05:

08:00 - Arrival
09:00 - Team Meeting
09:15 - Team Photoshoot
09:45 - Scheduled Test Runs
11:30 - Final Test Run
12:00 - Lunch
13:00 - Opening + Parc Fermé
13:30 - Competition - Freedrive
16:00 - Competition - Obstacle Evasion
17:30 - Competition - Navigation
19:00 - Award Ceremony

Visitors

Saturday, 09.05:

11:00 - Doors Open
13:00 - Opening
13:30 - Competition - Freedrive
16:00 - Competition - Obstacle Evasion
17:30 - Competition - Navigation
19:00 - Award Ceremony

Note: The schedule may be subject to some slight adjustments. Stay up to date by joining our newsletter

Registration

The event is free to attend, donations are always appreciated and can be made at the entrance. If you are planning to attend the CAuDri-Challenge 2026 as a spectator, please let us know by filling out the form below. This will help us to better plan the event and ensure that we can accommodate everyone.

We are looking forward to welcoming you to the CAuDri-Challenge 2026!

Visitor Registration

We could always use some help with catering and referees! If you want to to be a part of this years event, we would highly appreciate any volunteers, feel free to sign up using the form below:

Volunteer Registration

Paticipating Teams

We are excited to announce two new teams that will be participating in this years CAuDri-Challenge:
Team HTWKar from the Leipzig University of Applied Sciences and
Team RAVEN GP from the German University in Cairo.

They will be joining our returning teams from the previous season, we are looking at a total of 6 teams competing in this year’s challenge:

Team HTWKar (HTWK Leipzig)
Team RAVEN GP (German University in Cairo)
Team Smart Rollerz (DHBW Stuttgart)
Team Ostfalia Cup (Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences)
Team Spatzenhirn (Ulm University)
Team KITcar (KIT Karlsruhe)

Regulations

The regulations have been reworked for the upcoming competition. The latest version can be found here: Official Regulations 2026

CAuDri-Challenge 2025

2025-05-20T00:00:00+00:00

The third CAuDri-Challenge took place on May 16-17, 2025, marking a significant milestone with the presentation of the new Navigation discipline - a challenge designed to test vehicles’ ability to find their way through complex environments without predefined paths. While no teams participated in Navigation this year, we introduced the concept to prepare for future competitions. For the first time, we welcomed Team Ostfalia-Cup from Wolfenbüttel, joining our returning champions and creating the most competitive field yet.

Building on the success of previous years, the 2025 challenge maintained the two-day format that teams and spectators have come to appreciate. The Faculty of Technology at DHBW Stuttgart once again provided an excellent venue, with space for multiple tracks and comprehensive testing facilities.

The Teams and Their Vehicles

This year’s competition featured four teams, each bringing unique approaches and innovations

Team Ostfalia-Cup (Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences) - First-Time Participants

Team Ostfalia-Cup from Wolfenbüttel.

Making their CAuDri debut, Team Ostfalia brought two vehicles: “Cup” and “Pot”. The team impressed with their philosophy of “keep it simple, stupid” and their commitment to creating solutions that everyone on the team can understand.

Technology & Approach:

Custom middleware framework instead of ROS for full system control
Completely 3D-printed lightweight construction using Fusion360
Task management through GitLab with public documentation
Dual-vehicle strategy for testing and redundancy

Team Strengths: Simple but sufficient solutions that everyone on the team understands, with strong team cohesion and effective collaboration.

Recent Challenges: Team restructuring with few members and physical relocation, but they’ve implemented additional measures to reach students through courses and public outreach.

Future Plans: Major platform renewal including new sensors (Time-of-Flight, LiDAR), different cameras, and overall hardware component updates.

Team Spatzenhirn (University of Ulm) - The Veterans

Team Spatzenhirn from Ulm.

The team from Ulm returned with “Spatz 11,” their large and heavy vehicle featuring a distinctive onboard monitor. The established team showcased their methodical renewal approach, with new members taking over from veterans and rebuilding much of the vehicle and software systems.

Technology & Approach:

ROS2 framework with Zephyr firmware
Multi-sensor fusion: color camera and two depth cameras
Small neural networks optimized for CPU-only processing
New dual-axis Stanley controller based on Werling’s research from KIT
Complete trajectory planning system renewal

Team Strengths: Current software running reliably, good perception through purposeful sensor deployment, and agility enabled by small team size allowing rapid development.

Recent Challenges: Limited new recruits and upcoming departure of experienced members, but turned this into motivation by completely rebuilding their vehicle and implementing new traffic rule logic.

Key Innovation: “Selber machen macht mehr Spaß als altes zu pflegen” (Making it yourself is more fun than maintaining old code) - complete system renewal over maintaining legacy code.

Future Plans: Coral TPU integration for enhanced neural network performance, training team members as multi-purpose tools, and regaining full control over their codebase. They cited being stretched thin with new developments as the reason for not tackling Navigation in 2025.

Team KITcar (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) - The Champions

Team KITcar from Karlsruhe.

The former two-time gold winning champions brought “Miss Magic” with their decade of accumulated experience. The team operates through coordinated sub-teams with multifunctional capabilities, managing one of the larger and more established autonomous driving teams.

Technology & Approach:

Recent transition from ROS1 to ROS2 with Micro ROS
Hub wheel motors for precise control
Digital differential implementation
New depth camera integration
Behavior tree architecture for decision making
Coordinated sub-teams with multifunctional capabilities

Team Strengths: Extensive experience traditionally strong in Obstacle Course, with high expectations for new Navigation discipline performance.

Recent Challenges: Major ROS migration, getting Miss Magic road-ready, implementing radical innovations (digital differential, behavior trees), and new camera integration. Learned that dependency upgrades are complex and radical innovations require significant work investment.

Future Plans: Addressing remaining technical issues while managing generational transition as senior members graduate. Focus on machine learning integration, better sensor utilization, and improving system robustness. Strong emphasis on maintaining team enjoyment and collegiate atmosphere through flexible organization and social events.

Team Smart Rollerz (DHBW Stuttgart) - The Hosts and Innovators

Team Smart Rollerz from Stuttgart.

The home team continued their unique tradition of completely rebuilding “Smarty” each year as mandatory student project work. This approach ensures fresh perspectives while being constrained by academic requirements and specialized expertise needs.

Technology & Approach:

Annual complete rebuild as part of academic requirements
ROS2 framework with neural network detection (TensorFlow Lite, PyTorch)
Frame-rate independent state estimation
Low-level sensor fusion implementation
Comprehensive documentation through mandatory student thesis work

Team Strengths: Strong object detection capabilities, fresh approach each year since everyone writes their own code, excellent documentation due to academic requirements.

Recent Challenges: Error-prone environment recognition (solved with polarization filters), slow processing leading to slow control loops - addressed through frame-rate independent state estimation and sensor fusion.

Future Plans: SLAM implementation for simple mapping and object tracking, platform improvements including smaller PCBs and better cable management, new body design, and software runtime optimization for faster lane detection. Considering participating in the Navigation discipline for next year.

Unique Aspect: Students participate through mandatory project work, ensuring continuous innovation but limited to academic schedule constraints.

The Disciplines

Freedrive Course

The traditional time trial discipline challenged teams to achieve maximum speed while maintaining lane discipline. This year’s course rewarded teams with superior vehicle dynamics, high-speed trajectory planning, and robust lane detection systems.

Obstacle Evasion Course

The most complex traditional discipline simulated real traffic scenarios with moving vehicles, pedestrians, traffic signs, and various traffic rules. Teams needed to demonstrate sophisticated perception systems capable of real-time recognition of multiple object types and traffic regulations.

Key challenges included:

Moving and stationary vehicles
Pedestrian crossings with and without pedestrians
Traffic signs and speed limits
Overtaking restrictions and right-of-way scenarios
Stop signs and yield situations

While not contested this year, the Navigation discipline was presented to teams as the next evolution in this autonomous driving competition. This challenging concept would require vehicles to explore and map an unknown urban environment and planning the optimal path to preset goal markers - truly testing the “brain” of autonomous vehicles.

The proposed Navigation challenge includes:

Real-time environment mapping
Path planning and optimization
Coordinate system navigation
Robust localization without lane markings

Teams expressed interest but cited capacity limitations as the reason for not participating in 2025, with several indicating plans to tackle Navigation in future competitions.

Competition Highlights

The two-day format proved ideal for both teams and spectators, with Friday dedicated to setup, testing, and team interviews, while Saturday featured the official competition and public demonstrations.

Team Interviews revealed key insights:

Ostfalia-Cup operates as a university working group offering courses to students, with all documentation publicly available via GitLab. They maintain only 6-7 team members but emphasize that everyone understands their simple, effective solutions.
Spatzenhirn completed a major generational transition, with new members rebuilding the entire vehicle and software stack. They deliberately chose to “make it yourself” rather than maintain legacy code, finding this approach more motivating.
KITcar manages their large team through 4 coordinated sub-teams, each with multifunctional capabilities. As an independent registered association, they receive institutional support and maintain connections with other student groups.
Smart Rollerz uniquely rebuilds their vehicle annually through mandatory student project work, ensuring fresh approaches but limiting participation to academic schedules. They require specialized team members - noting that without their embedded and electrical engineering experts, “the car wouldn’t drive.”

Results

In a stunning upset, Team Spatzenhirn broke KITcar’s championship streak with a commanding performance across both disciplines. But perhaps most surprising was team Ostfalia-Cup’s debut performance:

Freedrive

🥇 First Place: Team Spatzenhirn (University of Ulm)
🥈 Second Place: Team Ostfalia-Cup (Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences)
🥉 Third Place: Team KITcar (KIT Karlsruhe)
4️⃣ Fourth Place: Team Smart Rollerz (DHBW Stuttgart).

Obstacle Evasion

🥇 First Place: Team Spatzenhirn (University of Ulm)
🥈 Second Place: Team Ostfalia-Cup (Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences)
🥉 Third Place: Team Smart Rollerz (DHBW Stuttgart) & Team KITcar (KIT Karlsruhe).

Looking Forward

The introduction of the Navigation discipline marks an evolution in autonomous driving education and competition. Teams are already planning advanced features for next year:

Ostfalia-Cup: Platform renewal and sensor upgrades including LiDAR and time-of-flight sensors
Spatzenhirn: Integration of Coral TPU for enhanced neural network performance and improved team recruitment
KITcar: Continued innovation with machine learning integration and enhanced sensor utilization
Smart Rollerz: SLAM implementation and advanced object tracking capabilities

Acknowledgments

The success of CAuDri-Challenge 2025 was made possible by the dedication and support of many:

Educational Partners

DHBW Stuttgart for providing exceptional facilities at the Faculty of Technology
Poulidis (Facility Management), Prof. Zomotor, Prof. Drüppel, Dean Prof. Mandel, and Mr. Baumgärtner for technical support and equipment setup
All participating universities for supporting their teams’ participation

Sponsors and Supporters

Freunde und Förderer der DHBW for financial support
KAMO (Karlsruhe Mobility) for sponsorship and providing development internship opportunities

Event Team

Special recognition to Yannik for exceptional organizational leadership
Marc and Jakob for hosting and commentary
All volunteer referees ensuring fair competition
Setup and breakdown crews
Refreshment stand volunteers providing coffee, cake, waffles, and beverages

Community

All participating teams and their dedication to advancing autonomous driving technology
Spectators and supporters who made the event vibrant and engaging
The growing CAuDri community pushing the boundaries of educational robotics

The 2025 CAuDri-Challenge has set new standards for academic autonomous driving competitions, introducing advanced navigation challenges while maintaining the community spirit that makes this event special. We look forward to seeing how teams will rise to meet even greater challenges in 2026!

Teams interested in participating next year can join our Discord server or contact us at kontakt@caudri-challenge.de for more information.

CAuDri-Challenge 2025 - Pre-Event Information

2025-04-23T00:00:00+00:00

Where?

Fakultät Technik, DHBW Stuttgart, Lerchenstraße 1, 70174 Stuttgart

When?

Participant Schedule

Friday, 16.05:

09:00 - Arrival
10:30 - Open Track Test Run
12:00 - Lunch
13:00 - Team Meeting
14:00 - Scheduled Test Runs
19:00 - Socializing

Saturday, 17.05:

08:00 - Arrival
09:00 - General Meeting
09:30 - Team Photoshoot
10:00 - Scheduled Test Runs
12:00 - Lunch
13:00 - Opening
13:30 - Team Introduction
14:00 - Final Test Run
15:00 - Freedrive Competition
16:15 - Obstacle Evasion Competition
17:30 - Navigation Competition
19:00 - Award Ceremony

Visitor Schedule on Saturday, 17.05:

13:00 - Opening
13:30 - Team Introduction
14:00 - Final Test Run
15:00 - Competition
19:00 - Award Ceremony

Visitor Registration

If you are planning to attend the event, please let us know by filling out the form below. This helps us in planning the event and is highly appreciated, thank you.

Visitor Registration

Volunteer Registration

If you could lend a hand, that would be awesome. Together, we can make it happen! Please let us know how you would like to help out, by filling out this google form:

Volunteer Registration

CAuDri-Challenge 2024

2025-04-23T00:00:00+00:00

Building on the success of last year’s inaugural event, we relaxed the schedule over two days and provided more opportunities for the teams to test their vehicles.

The Tracks

The main competition track was constructed on site from new material and moved to the front of the venue, where better lighting made for brighter pictures but also caused infamous challenges for the cars perception. The problem of direct sunlight is well known within the community. Where there is light, there be shadows. And more importantly here, reflections which can throw off the cars lane marking detection, possibly leading to derailment, which the teams had to overcome.

Test track No.1

Setup, the first day.

Test track No.2

The vehicles

The stars of the show.

Schedule

The competition was extended to two days this year, allowing the teams to test their vehicles more thoroughly before the competition and adjust to the track and environmental conditions. Friday served as a setup and practice day, while the official competition took place on Saturday. Each team had time slots for test runs and competition attempts assigned to them, ensuring fair and organized proceedings.

Friday, June 21

10:00 : Arrival and setup
11:00 : Welcome and organizational briefing
11:30 : Free test drives
15:00 : Practice competition
- Freedrive Course
- Obstacle Evasion Course
17:30 : Score evaluation and feedback

Saturday, June 22

10:30 : Official opening
11:00 : Team presentations and test drives
12:30 : Lunch break
13:30 : Final test sessions
15:00 : Competition
- Freedrive Course
- Obstacle Evasion Course
17:30 : Award ceremony

Results

Team KITcar remains firmly at the top of the leader board, for the second time in a row, they demonstrated their superior drive performance and showed how to master difficult road incidents with confidence. Relying on their teams legacy and man power, they show what it takes to be the best. While the champion’s runs are certainly a joy to look at (see links below), we must also admire the underdogs brave commitment to face off against the colossus even with the odds stacked against them. Congratulations to this year’s winners:

🥇 First Place: Team KITcar (KIT Karlsruhe)
- Experience their winning runs: Free Drive Run Obstacle Course
🥈 Second Place: Team Spatzenhirn (University of Ulm)
- Watch their performance: Free Drive Run Obstacle Course
🥉 Third Place: Team Smart Rollerz (DHBW Stuttgart)

Looking Forward

The success of the second CAuDri-Challenge has further established this competition in the autonomous driving education landscape. At the Faculty of Technology at DHBW Stuttgart, a venue was found that offers plenty of space for multiple tracks, tinkering and spectators, we hope to continue to host the CAuDri-Challenge there. We’re already looking forward to next year’s event and welcome interested teams to join us for the 2025 competition.

Teams interested in participating next year can join our Discord server or contact us at kontakt@caudri-challenge.de for more information.

Acknowledgments

This event wouldn’t have been possible without the dedication of many individuals and organizations:

DHBW Stuttgart for hosting us in their Faculty of Technology
The participating teams and their supporting institutions
Micha and his team from “Coffee on Tour” for providing tasty engineering fuel
Everyone who contributed to the refreshments and catering
All referees who volunteered to ensure a fair competition
All spectators who came to support the teams

The success of the first CAuDri-Challenge has set a strong foundation for future competitions. We look forward to seeing everyone again at the next event, where we’ll continue pushing the boundaries of autonomous driving technology together!

CAuDri-Challenge 2023

2023-12-05T00:00:00+00:00

After the initial idea in February in Ulm and months of tireless work, the first Cognitive Autonomous Driving Challenge took place in Stuttgart on October 7, 2023. Hungry for a test of strength after exhausting years of online competition and the unfortunate end of the Carolo Cup in Braunschweig, the five teams from Aachen, Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, Ulm and Wolfsburg were now able to meet in person again and compete against each other with their autonomous model vehicles.

The competition track at DHBW Stuttgart featuring various autonomous driving challenges

In the new building of the Faculty of Technology at DHBW Stuttgart, a venue was found that offered space for a brand new competition track with all imaginable scenarios and a second test track for parallel last-minute fixes and tests.

The rules for the first CAuDri Challenge were largely adopted from the last Carolo Cup, but with some simplifications to reduce the effort for everyone. The Basic and Master Cups were merged and the static disciplines were omitted. Instead we presented our cars at the beginning of the event, pointing out changes and talking about challenges we encountered. The competition was also held on just one day, please see the timetable below.

Agenda

10:00 : Welcome
10:30 : Team presentation
11:00 : Test drives
12:30 : Lunch break
14:00 : Warm-up
16:00 : Competition
- Freedrive Course
- Obstacle Evasion Course
18:00 : Award ceremony

After the teams arrived early, everybody worked together to set up the location. The test tracks were soon set up and the vehicles were on the road. Volunteers, mostly alumni from the teams, were instructed to act as referees, each covering a part of the track and penalizing errors as per the rules. After some testing and obligatory last minute bug fixing we came together for pizza and used the time catch up and brag to each other about new approaches and components we came up in friendly and inspiring manner.

Before the actual competition, each team was given the opportunity to do a final test run on the competition track.

Results

Congratulations to the winners of the inaugural CAuDri Challenge 2023:

🥇 First Place: Team KITcar (KIT Karlsruhe)
- Experience their winning runs: Free Drive Run Obstacle Course
🥈 Second Place: Team Spatzenhirn (University of Ulm)
- Watch their performance: Free Drive Run Obstacle Course
🥉 Third Place: Team e.Wolf (Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences, Wolfsburg)
Fourth Place: Team GalaXIs (RWTH Aachen)
Fifth Place: Team Smart Rollerz (DHBW Stuttgart)

Acknowledgments

This event wouldn’t have been possible without the dedication of many individuals and organizations:

The organizing team: Yannik, Marc, Max, Jakob, Niko, David and Jonas who handled everything from venue logistics to sponsorships
Our partners at Bosch and their invaluable contribution.
Karlsruhe Mobility KAMO for their financial support.
DHBW Stuttgart for providing an excellent venue
All volunteer referees and helpers
The participating teams and their supporting institutions

The success of the first CAuDri Challenge has set a strong foundation for future competitions. We look forward to seeing everyone again at the next event, where we’ll continue pushing the boundaries of autonomous driving technology together!

CAuDri-Challenge

CAuDri-Challenge 2026 - Pre-Event Information

Where?

When?

Participants

Friday, 08.05:

Saturday, 09.05:

Visitors

Saturday, 09.05:

Registration

Visitor Registration

Volunteer Registration

Paticipating Teams

Regulations

CAuDri-Challenge 2025

The Teams and Their Vehicles

Team Ostfalia-Cup (Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences) - First-Time Participants

Team Spatzenhirn (University of Ulm) - The Veterans

Team KITcar (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) - The Champions

Team Smart Rollerz (DHBW Stuttgart) - The Hosts and Innovators

The Disciplines

Freedrive Course

Obstacle Evasion Course

Navigation - The Future Challenge

Competition Highlights

Results

Freedrive

Obstacle Evasion

Looking Forward

Acknowledgments

Educational Partners

Sponsors and Supporters

Event Team

Community

CAuDri-Challenge 2025 - Pre-Event Information

Where?

When?

Participant Schedule

Friday, 16.05:

Saturday, 17.05:

Visitor Schedule on Saturday, 17.05:

Visitor Registration

Visitor Registration

Volunteer Registration

Volunteer Registration

CAuDri-Challenge 2024

The Tracks

The vehicles

Schedule

Results

Looking Forward

Acknowledgments

CAuDri-Challenge 2023

Agenda

Results

Acknowledgments