Self-driving vehicles 8 years away?
November 5, 2007 by Alborz Fallah
The US military last week sponsored a race to find the best self-driving robotic car. The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency Grand Challenge drew 36 entries, out of which only 11 made it to the final held last Saturday. The winner? Boss, a self-driving Chevrolet Tahoe that took home the $US2 million first prize.
Tartan Racing from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania designed Boss with the help of engineers and technicians from General Motors.
The race involved driving through a 100km urban course with absolutely no human control and no prior knowledge of the route. The vehicles had to reach the finish line using software and technologies such as radar, lasers, sensors and GPS.
The course included the other robotic cars as well as additional cars driven by humans. According to the BBC, the rumour on site was the human drivers had been placing bets on who would be hit first!
In order to insure the cars would not turn on their masters, each was followed by a human in a pace car equipped with a kill-switch that could instantly turn the car off if it started acting erratically.
Nineteen tasks were completed, ranging from pausing at intersections and driving around roundabouts to parking and merging.
The US military aims to develop autonomous cars that could find their way around a future battlefield, meanwhile GM is hoping for everyday cars capable of driving themselves. GM’s vice-president for research and development and strategic planning, Larry Burns, said developing cars that drove themselves was a key objective.
“Imagine being able to talk on the phone, eat your breakfast, handle your emails, and leave the driving to the vehicle, that would be pretty phenomenal. It’s going to a big breakthrough. It’s technology that’s on the way to ‘having cars that don’t crash.” he said.
Dr Burns believes cars capable of driving themselves could be on the road by 2015.
Eight years is a big claim! Either way, we sure hope the thicket of cameras and tracking equipment stuck to the top of Boss can be packaged a little better.
Print it: 
I like to drive though , do they suffer from road rage too?
A Chev called a BOSS,THATS WEIRD!
Hope they ditch the gear off the roof and bonnet!
I want it so that i can engage auto pilot when I feel like it, and then drive when I want to, that would be perfect,
perhaps also this way we can have driver licenses for people that can drive and people that can engage the auto pilot button, it might stop a lot of bad drivers from getting their license!
I’d trust a supercomputer over an 18 year old overseas drivers anyday!
I’ll be driving myself for many decades to come! Like most people who visit this site, I enjoy driving, and couldn’t think of anything worse than sitting in a self-driving vehicle. I’d catch the train over one of these.
You know what’s funny. I’ve seen the Golf this team had last year that looked like a standard Golf.
That PITA of an American car looks like it fell off the ugly tree, hit ever branch on the way down and landed in a bucket of smashed crabs.
I know the contest isn’t based on looks, but it’s still hilarious to look at such an abomination of a vehicle.
I myself would drive and would not let the autopilot take over. But I know that my wife would love this, as would other housewives.
Just think, the wives wouldn’t need to pick up the kids at school, just let the car do it. We would have less accidents from people wearing makeup or cumbing their hair while driving….
I’d never let an autocar do that. It could probably be hacked by some comp whiz and crashed live on the internet. I can see it now, autocarsmash.com!
Though, after a long night out drinking…beats taking a taxi :D