November 17, 2006
NC State's New DARPA Urban Challenge Driverless Vehicle
[Entered as one of the 78 Track B teams..]
...a driverless Lotus Elise to compete in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. The team will modify the sports car with sensors and on-board computers that have been programmed to autonomously maneuver it through an urban setting complete with traffic, intersections and traffic circles – the vehicle will even have to park itself – all without the help of a human.
Sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Grand Challenge competition was created to answer a congressional mandate to convert one-third of military vehicles to driverless, computer-driven mode by 2015. The objective of the competition is to have teams design a completely autonomous vehicle with no human assistance that can maneuver through an urban setting while avoiding obstacles.
~Is this car smiling? That's a wicked smirk?
How fast do you think this Lotus will be going during the competition? Can Lotus's be driven that slowly? (They'll modify its transmission?)
I'ld like to see videos of robot vehicles attempting to maneuver through 'urban settings' at any speed. I always liked demolition derbys.
Posted by Stubbornson at November 17, 2006 09:27 AM