For several decades common people as well as industry have been dreaming about and discussing cars that drive themselves, or rather, that drive us around wherever we want to go. Scifi images such as in The 6th Day or Knight Rider trigger the imagination.  According to researchers the days of the driver are nearly numbered (see The Times) and drive-by-wire ‘plus’ / driverless / smart cars could be a reality soon. As early as 2030, they expect – thanks to advances in artificial intelligence and computer vision – cars to be driving us autonomously from A to B and render the road a much safer place.

In a previous blog entry we already showed cars that park themselves. Scientists from Stanford University recently showcased a redesigned Volkswagen Passat name ‘Junior‘ at a conference by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). In 2005 the team successfully had a Touareg nicknamed ‘Stanley’ autonomously driving 200kms through the Nevada desert in the Grand Challenge. Now, in 2007, they will take up DARPA’s Urban Challenge in which the cars will have to face traffic and each other in an urban setting. The challenge as such changes from merely being aware of the environment to understanding it, from a rather static to a much more dynamic environment in which hypotheses need to be made, anticipation plays a major part etc.

Via De Morgen (thanks Michael)

Related posts:

1. grand challenges for engineering

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 20th, 2007 at 22:46 and is filed under technology, trends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.