Stanford University Makes Another Driverless Car

According to Technologyreview.com, Stanford's new driverless car, a Volkswagen Passat, was test-driven in a parking lot in Mountain View, CA, without a driver last week.

The car is named Junior and will be Stanford University's official entry to the DARPA Urban Challenge. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Urban challenge is a race featuring autonomous ground vehicles conducting simulated military supply missions in a mock urban area. The cars must drive around city streets, obey traffic rules, avoid obstructions, and must drive well among other cars. Junior is not a remote-controlled car, it is completely automated and runs through its onboard computers which guide it through its automated driving system.

Technologyreview.com interviewed Sebastian Thrun, a computer science professor at Stanford University and their team leader for the Urban Challenge. Thrun said their goal is to design a car that can drive itself to make roads safer and give people back their time.

According to technologyreview.com, Junior is not Standord's first automated car. Stanford University has already won the DARPA Urban Challenge two years ago with their automated car named, Stanley. Stanley has GPS sensors and lasers, a camera, and a bunch of other equipment to help it run its course, Junior is based on the same technology but with improvements.

The technologyreview article reveals that Junior uses a long range laser perception. These laser beams detects reflection to determine the distance of other objects. One of these laser systems is mounted on Junior's roof and has a range of 100 meters. Another laser system points at the ground to keep track of the road and lane markers, the other system takes a 360-degree image of its surroundings. Junior has two 2.3ghz intel quad-core computers that processes the data and relays it to the driving systems which guide the car. The car is also equipped with a GPS system and other sensors which allow Junior to pinpoint its location within 30 meters.

During the test drive, Junior has successfully completed DARPA's task including a safety test that ensured that the team could remotely stop Junior from a speed of 20 miles per hour, as well as other tasks like navigating within a lane, stopping at stop signs, making u-turns, avoiding obstacles, and following driving instructions that DARPA provides.

There will be another test run in October and if everything goes well, Junior will compete in the final round of the Urban Challenge on November 3 of this year. To know more about DARPA Urban Challenge, visit http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/index.asp.

SOURCE:

Kate Greene, Stanford's New Driveless Car. Technologyreview.com. URL: (http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/18908/)