The NXP cup

The ASE project finds its roots in a long-lasting history of participation in the NXP Cup, a global autonomous racing competition organized by the famous NXP semiconductor company. Much of our work for ASE has been inspired by our contributions to the cup, and ASE Rovers are used by new students every year to compete.

Image by Egle Jurkevičiūtė

Elias Groot

Software Lead, Project Administrator

Goal

The main goal of the NXP cup is to drive an unknown track as fast as possible, autonomously. Additional points can be collected by correctly performing the Mouser Lap of Honor. This entails stopping within 10 centimeters of an obstacle after completing a lap successfully. The rules are visualized by our Swiss colleagues in the video below.

Hundreds of student teams from Europe, the Middle-East and Africa compete. They first race in local qualifiers, after which the top teams will continue to the global qualifiers each year. VU teams have competed since 2019, traveling to Paris, Bucharest, Hamburg, Eindhoven and Nijmegen to finish first place.

Hardware and Software

NXP provides competing universities with a default car kit and support software, but at the VU we have developed twenty high-speed, Linux-based Rovers ourselves. These Rovers are used both in the ASE bachelor project (April until July) and the NXP cup (January until May) each year. The Rover is designed, developed and produced almost entirely in-house at the VU, carefully co-designing software and hardware. In 2024, the ASE/Alpha-One team (Niels Althuisius, Eduardo Lira, Hugo van Wezenbeek, Max Gallup and Elias Groot) first competed with the newly produced Rover and won the finals in Hamburg.

Image by Egle Jurkevičiūtė

The Rover comes preinstalled with debugging and tuning software and a modular service-based framework that is fully Linux-based. This allows future students to race and research from the moment you plug in the battery.

Timeline

Generally, the NXP cup qualifiers are organized in April. Once qualified, the finals will be held in May. Keep an eye out on the official NXP cup page for important announcements and registration requirements.

If you already want to get a feel for the NXP cup, take a look at our prior participation results and media

Coordination and Sign-up

Since the very first moment, the VU's participation in the NXP cup has been led by dr. Natalia Silvis-Cividjian. If you are interested in signing up for the NXP cup, please get in touch with her or email ase@vu.nl. Note that the NXP cup is unrelated to the ASE project!

Acknowledgements

The production of all Rovers that are used for both the NXP cup and ASE, is a large and complex project that requires many hands on deck. Without everyone's help there would be no Rovers to speak of, so we are incredibly thankful for everyone's contributions ❤️.

• Niels Althuisius (Electronica Beta) designed, planned and manufactured the custom printed circuit boards that connect all electronics of the Rover. He has helped out incredibly since the very first participation in the NXP Cup.
• Arnoud Denker (Electronica Beta) helped with manufacturing of electronic boards for the Rovers.
• Rob Nieman (Fijnmechanische Instrumentatie Bèta) helped with the manufacturing of the chassis of the Rovers.
• Lars Eeuwijk (Fijnmechanische Instrumentatie Bèta) consulted on various mechanical decisions regarding the construction of the Rover.

And especially, dr. Natalia Silvis-Cividjian who has, continuing on her Pervasive Computing course, created the Project Autonomous Driving course and is the driving force behind the VU's competition in the NXP cup. Natalia is creator and manager of the ASE project and has always provided us with the means, motivation, guidance and support to race. ASE could not exist without her.

Sponsors

In 2023 and 2024, our efforts in the NXP cup have been sponsored by Debix/Polyhex and VA-imaging.