Posted on 10/25/2007 12:09:52 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Aside from a few antennas and a small, spinning cylinder on the roof, the black Chevy Tahoe looks about like any other you might find on the road. A peek inside, however, shows this is something completely different.
This Chevy is filled with computers, sensors, motors and other electronic equipment to make it a completely autonomous vehicle, capable of safely navigating city streets on its own - braking at stop signs, navigating lane changes and avoiding other cars and objects.
The vehicle, the creation of a team of Cornell University students and recent graduates, is one entry in the DARPA Urban Challenge, a competition to create unmanned robotic vehicles that may safely traverse city streets without human control.
Sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the competition will take place at the former George Air Force Base in Victorville beginning Friday and concluding Nov. 3. Entrants will navigate a course of simulated city streets, with the car making it in the fastest time winning the $2 million grand prize.
The competition is hoped to aid in developing technologies to field unmanned robotic vehicles for military missions, such as supply convoys. Congress has mandated that by 2015 one-third of operational ground combat vehicles be unmanned.
Most of the Cornell team members have experience in this type of effort from their participation in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge. The team practiced for the earlier competition two years ago at the Mojave Air and Space Port, using a hangar as home base and a desert course similar to what they expected to find in the competition.
They enjoyed the facilities, atmosphere and people so much they decided to return this time for the final preparations for the urban competition, which begins with qualifying trials.
(Excerpt) Read more at avpress.com ...
I met a hot babe from Cornell on a cruise once. So that would be two good things.
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