Stanford's Stanley enters DARPA Grand Challenge

Stanford recently took the wraps off Stanley, its entry in the DARPA Grand Challenge, where it will compete against 19 other driverless vehicles in a 175-mile race across the Mojave Desert. Based on a Volkswagon Touareg, Stanley has a fuel-efficient turbodiesel engine that should let the vehicle complete a 10-hour race and power all its electronics on a single tank of gas. For navigation, the vehicle has an array of sensors and GPS to determine Stanley's position within 2 inches, plus roof-mounted lasers on the lookout for obstacles in front of the vehicle. It also has long-range rader to scan the horizon and stereo-vision cameras to take pictures of the course, which are fed into a computer algorithm that learns the terrain and determines the best driving surface. What's more, the whole thing is actually street legal, something that can't be said for most of the entries in the DARPA challenge.

[www.mygadgetbag.com @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

This one looks like it could be a winner!

It will be interesting to see how things turn out..

[Bob @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

Forget the article. There's a nice video of the twins explaining the axion challenge here:
http://www.axionracing.com/

Have fun!

[Paul @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

Do americans still refer to diesel as gas (gasoline) ?

[Tilly @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

Nope, we call it reefer. So, if you're ever at a gas station make sure to ask them for some reefer.

[Mac @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

The should modify one of these: https://www.fleet.ford.com/showroom/specialty_vehicles/School_Bus.asp to drive itself around town with no driver. At least then I could have food fights without some crazy old bag shouting and yelling at me.

[CamBob @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

#3 Yes they do. They are generally ignorant.

[Dave Schroeder @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

#3 and #6, um, no, most don't.

People call diesel "diesel", not gas/gasoline.

But in the context of filling up a tank, or talking about a filling station, or referring to the state of the tank, yes, people will say "I need to go to the gas station" or "I have a quarter tank of gas". But if referring to the actual substance the vehicle runs on, anyone with a diesel car will say "diesel". It's just the relative lack of diesel consumer vehicles in the US that has led to "gas station" and "gas tanks" and "tank of gas" being used in normal conversation, even in reference to diesel vehicles.

[Paul @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

#4
#8

Ta !

[Alex Kunstmann @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

I can't believe there is still people that can't write the VW brand right. It's VolkswagEn, not volkswagOn!! We're not talking about some folk's wagon its a Wagen, German term for "car".

[Taylor Alexander @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

YES! That's my teacher's project (Pascal Stang)! He teaches my robotics class, and DAMN, is that guy a genious! Glad to see all the publicity he's getting, that thing kicks ass.
-Taylor

[Pacey @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

Looks like Taylor is egging for extra credit, just in case his teach reads engadget too.

seriously though, i think the DARPA challenge is a great thing. Lay the foundation now, cuz I'm getting sick of having to actually drive my car. Heck, even give me the freeways under the cars control, i'll drive the surface roads.

I'm taking bets on how long that'll be though...

[John Gilman @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

What's long-range rader?

[Orca94 @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

There's a modified mustang on campus here (at Stanford) that they've been working on for a while. So it'd be interesting to see how this iteration turns out. The technology really seems amazing. They were able to program the mustang to drive down the street, go into a parking lot, drive up the parking lot, and do loops around the top of the parking structure. That route wasn't even remote controlled, it was pre-programmed. Too bad they run on matlab, I hate that software.

[Paul @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

When I bought my TDI Jetta, it took me a few months to get used to saying that I needed "fuel" as opposed to "gas".

As for Americans being stupid, your mileage may vary. ;-)

[Taylor @ Dec 19th 2005 2:14AM]

Hah, they totally won.
-Taylor