You can make a robotic car, and you can
make a robotic car -- and it looks like Stanford is leading the charge on the no compromises approach with its new driverless Audi TTS. That, of course, is only the latest in a long line of robotic cars from the folks at Stanford, and it looks like it's also by far their most ambitious, as it's going above and beyond the usual
DARPA challenges in the hope of breaking a few records and winning a few races. In fact, the car apparently already holds the "unofficial" speed record for an automous car at 130 miles per hour and, in the long term, Stanford hopes that it'll be able to complete the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, which stretches some twenty kilometers and includes no less than 156 turns. To balance all that adreneline, the Volkswagen Automotive Innovation Laboratory at Stanford has also developed a new VW Passat "valet system" that may not win any races, but can sure do some mean parallel parking. Videos of both after the break, more details a few hands-off impressions courtesy of
BotJunkie at the links below.
Read - BotJunkie, "Stanford's New Robotic Audi TTS Knows How To Drift, Will Tackle Pikes Peak Next Year"
Read - BotJunkie, "VAIL Demonstrates Autonomous Valet Parking System"
posted Oct 26th 2009 5:59PM
Do a barrel roll.
bwahhaha +1 for starfox64 ref.
That AUDI look baaad to the core... Hot
The Audi T(i)TS is not a grown mans car.
S5 son
S4 pop
Smaller, more efficient engine, more power and speed to boot :)
pgr and grand tourismo will never be the same!
theres no escape, robotics cars will chase us down in the future, next to all the terminators... pew pew peeeewwww!
JohnnyCab?
I wanna have sex with this car SO bad it's has the look.
can i have your babies?
I don't really get the unmanned vehicle craze... Not against it... Just don't get it...
I just feel that this brain power and funding would be better used on alternate fuels, more efficient public transportation, flying cars, hover boards, etc...
- Dan
An automated car IS more efficient public transportation
^ Oh?
I look forward to the day that I am standing at the automated car stop.
I don't think you guys understand. Automatic driving cars is the best thing ever since the invention of the car itself. It will revolutionize the way people use cars.
Currently, there are many inefficiencies, which could be eliminated by having a networked system or auto driven cars. Imagine, a car which can interact with other cars, find the fastest path, drive at much faster speeds and reduce waste. There wont be a need to stop at traffic lights anymore, since the cars can get to the intersection at a perfect time, where it can just go forward. This way, energy wasted when braking and accelerating can be conserved and a new generation of 'green' cars will arise.
This might sound like science fiction, but I cannot wait for the day people don't need to burn extra, unnecessary fuel, braking and accelerating. Also, a computer will be able to handle higher speeds much better than a human, allowing for faster cars and shorter rides.
Just my two cents. :)
Dan learn to drive.
if every car was automated they would have a network with each other.
There would be no more traffic, there would be no red lights, there would be no accidents (except in the rare software failure), likely speed limits will go away.
Computers can do simple tasks much better than humans. Driving is a simple task and I would like to surf the web in the morning on my morning commute. Plus if you want your flying cars you better believe cars are going to get faster?! Of course they will! We can't trust human reaction times on any speed over what we have now. There are people bred to drive cars faster but it simply can't be done for a normal person.
Automated cars are the next step. We need to take the human element out of transportation to make it more efficient.
@fanboy
By the time all cars drive autonomous and we don't need traffic lights I hope there isn't actually an issue with 'burning fuel', because it would seem quite ridiculous to use such a primitive propulsion system, especially 250 years from now.
It's like people from the past hoping for robots to shuffle coal in the steamengine in the future.
I get what you are saying... But I feel that the interesting thing about the "brain power" is that the amount learned through prototypes/experiments like these, enables the ability to apply these ideas learned to different concepts(i.e. Alternate fuels, efficient public transportation, flying cars...)
For instance lets say that this technology continues to develop (which it probably will).... as does alt energy for cars (example electric cars), then the lessons and things learned here can be applied to making (electric/hydrogen/hybrid/ or ....) more efficient.
Let me give a more detailed example. Lets say we get electric cars off the ground rolling; alt energy technology is there, demand is there, so on and so forth. Well people still need to do simple things like park, calculate logistics, so on and so fourth. Now lets say they combined the "valet parking" concept with the electric car.
You solved multiple problems by increasing efficiency and advancing the technology. Now you can incorporate the another concept or piece of technology you learned from something else... (example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPsawyK81XY )
For one, you could vastly increase the number of cars on our current roads if everything was automated. Currently the current lanes are about as wide as two cars to help correct for driver error. With NO driver error we could easily squeeze additional lanes out of our current roads.
Not to mention being able to safely follow closer to to the vehicle in front of me.
I for one look forward to that future.
@fanboy that sounds all well and good, but you can't really want that, do you? I love driving (especially since buying an Audi) and I couldn't imagine having to sit in the passengers seat.
Ummmm... try no more drunk drivers. That in itself is a reason to fund autonomous car research.
Hmm i dont mind automated drivers as long as the whole world's programmers debug the programming for at least 5 years..............
@fanboy's "There wont be a need to stop at traffic lights anymore, since the cars can get to the intersection at a perfect time, where it can just go forward."
Um, people WALK. Your future presumes there won't be pedestrians.
@matt
Not to be a pessimist (and I don't have anything against the whole car-driving-itself thing), but can you imagine a future where terrorist hackers get into networked cars and create one giant pile-up?
@Macfrog2's "Currently the current lanes are about as wide as two cars to help correct for driver error."
I'm guessing you've never been in NYC, much less driven on the FDR. The FDR is especially FUN.
I hope that snapshot of code wasn't from the actual code that they're using. If so, I wouldn't be caught dead in a vehicle powered by software written in Java. Java, a great idea that's poorly executed.
Have you done a code review on the vehicle you DO drive? It might be frightening, even if it's just handling your climate controls...
Sounds like you have no programming experience.
@guywithdogs:
I do the same annoying three button presses on my Climatronic to get it to do what I want it to do. It doesn't really matter what language it runs on since it can't influence power, braking, and steering. As for the ECU, Bosch doesn't use Java for their ECUs and I trust Garrett's manipulation.
@briankun:
I do and have no interest in coding in Java for any platform. Every Java binary I've used, I can immediately tell that it was written in Java. Poor performance and dodgy stability. I can't trust it to mission critical uses and I surely wouldn't trust it to anything where my life was at stake.
What about Java on a dedicated platform. It doesn't run any other software at the same time to slow it down.
//Variable "Passenger" is an exception. Exception thrown of Car.
I actually wanted to see if anyone commented similarly. I'm a Java student as we speak and that screenshot upset me. I admit to an incomplete understanding of the language's implementation, but it appears that it takes a program in Java noticeably longer to behave than a similar program in C++.
With that said, I am sure I could be a much better programmer in it. ;) Now, I'm no roboticist, but I have a vague feeling it may well be just a stock photo...for I fail to see a use of strings in a driving program.
I'm sorry but Americans really dont have taste in cars, you see this Audi and you are all like 'woooooo'. But in Europe this is peanuts...
I see such car three times a week...keep driving around with ure musclecars though, they look kinda nice...kinda =DDD
I'm more impressed by Europe's gas mileage, but only a little. It's still lagging, just not as much as the US.
Watch what you say about Americans. not all of them think alike.. and I'd also like to see what car you are driving, don't bother mentioning it here though because no one will believe you.
I see pigs fly three times a week too.
I see audi's every damn day in droves too, and I never liked them, I know they are technically sound and all, but I don't like the look and image of them at all.
1:32 of the first video...."Today....the research continous"
FAIL
beat me to it.
I FAIL.
I spelled continuous wrong. FML
Hey Teerim! The fail continuous!
On the Passat; that video is not parallel parking.
http://www.gulker.com/blog/wp-content/2007/05/smart_car.jpg
now that is parallel parking!
Has anyone seen that movie (I forget the name) where there is this exotic black car (ferrari diablo?) which came from hell and there's no driver and it runs people down? This somehow reminds me of that.
The Wraith?
Because teaching people to parallel park is too hard.
There are some countries with a whole population that you cannot teach it given all the time and resources imaginable.
Most don't even bother.
you better believe audi calls dibs on that technology for the market first.
They can lay dibs, but it'll be a standard feature in mercedes long before they are dibing..
I love driving my Audi A4 3.0 Quattro and there is no way I would trade it for a robotic one.
What they've already accomplished is impressive, especially getting that thing to make the Audi logo drifting. I'm glad to see they're finally using a proper sports car for one of these things. But man, Pikes Peak is one helluva tough coarse and is a mix between dirt and pavement which demands an awful lot of precision when cornering. If they actually pull it off, this thing will be astonishing.
VAIL
Uh, Was that f*in JAVA code 2sec into the video?
Java FTW!
Why was there a glass of wine on the ground next to the passat? Are they implying that you can drink and park now?
That's a good use of the automation. No more drinking-and-driving. Just get in the car - in the passenger seat, just to be safe, if only from the cops who see you asleep, and let it take you home.
Think of the "creature comfort" aspects. Sure, you want to be able to race with the thing. You want to slalom and whatever.
But when you're just going in to the office or wherever on a boring, routine drive, set it to auto. Make calls, surf the web, play games. When you get wherever you're going, let it drop you at the door, park itself, and pick you up at the door when you're done.
Just because the car has auto modes doesn't mean it loses the manual modes.
MIT called. They want their cars back.
will teh valet one take the change in my cup holder?
Hmm i dont mind automated drivers as long as the whole world's programmers debug the programming for at least 5 years..............