Pike's Peak 2010: Audi TTS sans driver.

[pchall]

Audi TTS to Take on Pikes Peak, Without a Driver
By JIM MOTAVALLI

The 12.4-mile Pikes Peak International Hill Climb up winding mountain roads near Colorado Springs, Colo., dates to 1916, and winners, driving just about anything on wheels in a wide variety of classes, have included Mario Andretti and Al Unser. It’s safe to say that the competition has never been won by a car driving itself, but Chris Gerdes, a professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford, is out to change that.

“Shelley” is an Audi TTS that looks basically stock — until you notice that it’s hitting the highway with nobody in the driver’s seat. It’s being prepared to run up Pikes Peak as early as next year at speeds approaching 130 miles an hour with full computer and GPS control. Test runs will be done with a “safety driver,” but then Shelley goes it alone. “The timeline is dictated by how quickly we can convince ourselves that the overall system is safe,” Mr. Gerdes said.

Autonomous driving may conjure a picture of a remote operator sitting at a simulator, but the reality is more complex — and more interesting — than that. The car will take in information at a rate of 500 times a second, Mr. Gerdes said, using gyroscopes, accelerometers and its GPS system to increase speed, brake and locate the boundaries of the road. “The car is making decisions itself,” he said. “It has some of the same knowledge racecar drivers have of how fast it can go on each part of the track.”



http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/11/04/automobiles/04wheels-audi/blogSpan.jpg

link (http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/audi-tts-takes-on-pikes-peak-without-at-driver/)

[rosawendel]

there was a bit on Top Gear about something similar, but with a BMW. Basically, they sent a car around the track with a driver, to teach the track to the GPS system, then the GPS system did a lap by itself. pretty cool stuff, but, knowing how often my passport 9500ix loses the GPS signal (parking decks, cloudy days, etc), I wouldn't want to be around the track when it went around....

[Don Quixote]

Very cool. You'll have to forgive me that I won't be standing along the course when it makes its first several runs. :D

[oddlycalm]

Cool, when the machines come to kill us I want to make sure that they look good and drive well while doing it....:gomer: :thumbup:

On a more serious note, the real trick is not knowing the route, where the road boundary is and the brake points, as those are all relatively simple to accomplish. In order to approach human function you need to control how to slide the car enough, but not too much, to be fast on a gravel surface that varies from corner to corner and is different every time they grade the road. Depending on road "feel" is theoretically possible but it will be a tall order. I strongly suspect you will see their car going through turns without power sliding.

Not to say that powersliding is impossible though. There are sensors, such as laser displacement sensors, that would allow the car's CPU to "read" the road surface in real time. Integrating them with a signal from high frequency (50KHz - 250KHz) piezo acoustical sensors in conjunction with accelerometers could be used to control the slip angle and slide rate. That would take some serious computational power and a relatively advanced modeling.

oc

[G.]

Cool, when the machines come to kill us I want to make sure that they look good and drive well while doing it....:gomer: :thumbup:

On a more serious note, the real trick is not knowing the route, where the road boundary is and the brake points, as those are all relatively simple to accomplish. In order to approach human function you need to control how to slide the car enough, but not too much, to be fast on a gravel surface that varies from corner to corner and is different every time they grade the road. Depending on road "feel" is theoretically possible but it will be a tall order. I strongly suspect you will see their car going through turns without power sliding.

Not to say that powersliding is impossible though. There are sensors, such as laser displacement sensors, that would allow the car's CPU to "read" the road surface in real time. Integrating them with a signal from high frequency (50KHz - 250KHz) piezo acoustical sensors in conjunction with accelerometers could be used to control the slip angle and slide rate. That would take some serious computational power and a relatively advanced modeling.

oc
I for one, welcome our new robot overlords.

:)

[Indy]

I for one, welcome our new robot overlords.

:)

I am thinking they will almost surely do a better job than the humans do.

[pchall]

I am thinking they will almost surely do a better job than the humans do.

That's been the premise for a lot of bad SF for a century. Probably starting with E. M. Forster's "The Machine Stops".

[oddlycalm]

I am thinking they will almost surely do a better job than the humans do.
Yeah, but can they drive up a gravel road real fast? :D

oc