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Stanford and Volkswagen Create Autonomous Vehicle

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the race-is-on dept.

nght2000 writes "Stanford University has created an autonomous driving robot to compete in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge Race. The race will be held on October 8, 2005 in the desert Southwest. The team that develops an autonomous ground vehicle that finishes the designated route most quickly within 10 hours will receive $2 million. The route will be no more than 175 miles over desert terrain featuring natural and man-made obstacles. The Stanford Racing Team's vehicle is a Volkswagen R5 turbo diesel Touareg that was donated by Volkswagen of America. The Stanford Team has been working with the Volkswagen Electronics Research Laboratory on the project."

5 of 235 comments (clear)

  1. this specifically won't work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The course is specifically designed to defeat the gps+road map method of solving the puzzle.

    It is guaranted that the vehicle has to pass through a tunnel or other type of obstruction that disables GPS.

    Also, it is guaranteed that all roads will have obsticles at random locations that must be avoided. I understand that there are points where the vehicle must do an obstacle course and avoiding it or jumping over it is banned.

    1. Re:this specifically won't work by Nefarious+Wheel · · Score: 3, Informative

      GPS isn't the only positioning system in existence -- GPS plus intertial navigation could do it. Inav sums micro changes in direction along a path to give you a resultant vector.

      --
      Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
    2. Re:this specifically won't work by john_anderson_ii · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's true that GPS and "turn here", "turn there" technologies won't work, if that was all it took the U.S. Military could have done it themselves.

      I do recall reading in Leatherneck magazine about a project the USN was undertaking involving unmanned subs that were to be used as long range sonar platforms and possibly very long range torpedos.

      While operating underwater GPS is useless, but dead reckoning (Speed * Time = distance, distance @ bearing = position relative to start position) is still useful. The subs they were working on used a combination of surfacing for GPS, dead reckoning, and sonar navigation to avoid obstacles to reach their goal. I haven't read Leatherneck since I retired from the USMC, so I don't know what became of this project.

      I think the point of this exercise is to use a mix of technolgies to accomplish the task. The most efficient mix, in theory, will win.

      --
      Be Safe! Sleep with a Marine. Semper Fi!
  2. Re:I worked on this project for a few hours by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    No one has come even come close to the finish line on this race, so it would be very significant if a team was able to finish it. In 2004 "The furthest any of the teams had gotten was the Red Team's 7.4 miles" in a 150 mile course. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge

  3. Re:YAY!!! by NanoGator · · Score: 3, Informative

    "Herbie Rides Again"

    I can't believe that Herbie is taking precedence over KITT here. I know it's a VW and all, but yeesh, KITT's got der bliken lights!

    --
    "Derp de derp."