Herbie's got nothing on Stanley
Here's a Veedub that has even Herbie licked in the clever tricks department.Nicknamed Stanley, this super-high-tech Volkswagen Touareg completed a 210km cross-desert race in record time to win one of the world's toughest automotive challenges. But there was no podium celebration or champagne for the driver -- this competition was for driverless cars.
The Grand Challenge was staged by the Pentagon and the US Department of Defense and offered a $US 2 million prize for the winning vehicle.
The product of a collaboration between the Volkswagen Electronics Research Laboratory (ERL) and California's Stanford University, Stanley covered the course in 6 hours, 53 minutes and 8 seconds -- 11 minutes and 42 seconds faster than its closest rival.
The mobile laboratory navigated the course using an array of cutting-edge technology -- numerous sensors around the vehicle worked in tandem with seven networked Pentium motherboards with 1.6 GHz processors, while laser detectors, stereo visual equipment and short range 24-GHz radar systems linked to the millimetre accurate Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system.
The networked processors combined all the data to produce the quickest and safest route for the vehicle. This information was fed to newly developed drive-by-wire systems operating the brakes, accelerator and steering.
Other than this, the Touareg was more or less standard -- the only differences being the addition of underbody protection plates and uprated suspension dampers.
A total of 23 vehicles began the challenge, which took place over 210km of desert roads, mountain trails, dry lakebeds and tunnels. The course was revealed on the morning of the start and rules stipulated that it had to be completed in under 10 hours.
Volkswagen says the research involved in creating Stanley will lead directly to safer and more responsive assistance systems for its future vehicles.
"The aim is to make driving even safer in the future," the company says.
"Components used within Stanley are not far removed from current vehicle technology -- the short-range radar system is a development of the Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) currently available on Passat (in overseas markets). This system recognises dangerous situations using radar measurements and activates the brakes as a precaution."
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