RESEARCH: Road Robots Develop

New Developments from DARPA's "Robot Driving Competition:"

(June 2008) "The Boss", first place winner of the DARPA Urban Challenge was the result of joint work of General Motors Research & Development and Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science and College of Engineering. The GM-Carnegie Mellon Autonomous Driving Collaborative Research Lab is being established as an extension of GM's Global Research & Development network and will be located at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh.


(June 2008) "Stanley" the first winner of a DARPA Challenge, is heading to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, as an example of technological pioneering. This driverless car was developed jointly with Stanford University School of Engineering and Volkswagen Research in both California and Wolfsburg, Germany. Stanford and VW will continue to collaborate at the Volkswagen Automotive Innovation Lab (VAIL) on the university’s campus.


It is really awesome to see several vehicles driving on a course without drivers, making decisions about when to safely proceed at a stop-sign or where to park. In November 2007 I traveled to Victorville, California to cover the 2007 DARPA* Urban Challenge. Eighty-nine teams applied, and thirty-five were chosen for the National Qualification Event.

The vehicles were designed and built to drive entirely on their own with no driver in the vehicle and no remote control. The vehicle determined its environment with sensors and positioning systems, to carry out assigned tasks in certain areas completely on its own.

These vehicles packed a lot of computing power to complete the task while evaluating the environment to control steering, brakes, and acceleration. There were different courses in the 55 mile event - some involving driving in a course with turns, stop signs, cross-traffic, rough terrain, and suburban streets. It was really strange to see driverless vehicles coming up to stop signs, waiting for traffic to clear, signalling (why can't human drivers do this), turning into the proper lane, and parking in the right spot in a parking lot.

I don't expect auto-pilot functions anytime soon in your car, but besides reducing risks to our troops, one of the team members said that there are possible safety improvements to our driving in some situations. Larry Burns, GM vice president of R&D and Strategic Planning said, "Imagine being virtually chauffeured safely in your car while doing your e-mail, eating breakfast and watching the news." Now I know some people try this now, but we're looking at this happening SAFELY in the future.



*DARPA is the acronym for The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - the central research and development organization for the Department of Defense (DoD).