Originally published July 26 2005
Self-driving car to be entered into 175-mile desert race
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Many sci-fi novels and movies have self-driving cars, and although mass production is a long way off, Stanford University's self-driving vehicle (affectionately referred to as "Stanley") will be put through its paces at the second annual DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) Grand Challenge, a 175-mile, $2 million first prize desert race.
Call Thrun and his Stanford Racing Team wild-eyed dreamers, but they're turning science fiction into fact.
Stanford will compete in the second annual DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) Grand Challenge, a U.S. military-sponsored desert race that tests the endurance of robots.
Sandstorm recently drove 200 miles over seven hours autonomously on a racecourse--a milestone for Carnegie Mellon.
On Saturday, the Stanford team raced Stanley over the 2004 DARPA Grand Challenge course and the robot drove autonomously for all but three miles of the 144-mile course in the Mojave desert.
"Overall, we believe we achieved a major milestone," Thrun said on Monday.
Led by Thrun, a protege of CMU's team leader and robotics professor Red Whittaker, the Stanford team includes six core software engineers, mostly Ph.D. students.
There's antique auto paraphernalia, old computer monitors, heaps of wires, scraps of metal and recycling bins overflowing with soda cans.
Other than the sensors that cover its roof, a control panel wedged next to the driver's seat and a computer network in the back, it looks like a regular SUV.
It takes radar, vision and laser sensors fastened to the car that can act as early warning systems, detecting close and far-range obstacles.
During Saturday's trip, Stanley encountered six failures on the 144-mile terrain.
According to Thrun, the failures were caused by false interpretations of the road ahead; an inability to drive through a couple of long underpasses with an extended GPS outage; a hardware failure of Stanley's cooling fans (the outside temperature hit 123 degrees Fahrenheit); and at one point, an inexplicable veering off the road.
Still, the team has made major breakthroughs in Stanley's software this month, according to Mike Montemerlo, a postdoctoral scholar in Stanford's AI lab who heads up software development for Stanley.
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