Students Create Wireless Self-Driving Car That Navigates City Streets
Engineer: 'In Battlefield Environment, Can We Have Robotic Convoys?'
October 11, 2007
The following story was posted online at www.leasetrader.com.
ORLANDO, Fla. -- A group of engineering students at the University of Central Florida have created a vehicle that is being called the car of the future because it can drive itself around town without remote assistance from humans.
"We will tell it to go out to
McDonald's and it will go through the drive-through and we sit in the back and it will get our food," lead engineer Don Harper said.
A 1996 Subaru Outback has been computerized to back out of a parking space, navigate a roadway and stop at an obstruction -- without human assistance.
A USB drive serves as the car's brains, the engineers said. A route is programmed with directions and it is logged into the complex system.
"It is telling the (car) that there is a street ahead and to turn right," student Remo Pillat. "It gives the robot an idea of where the street goes."
The Knight Rider VIP has rotating laser sensors on each side of the car, four computers, a Global Positioning System, and motors to control the brake, gas and steering.
"There is a little motor that pulls the cable and that is how it gets gas and the same thing with the brake," Pillat said.
A wireless Internet connection on the roof allows engineers to send directions to the car from anywhere in the world.
"That is the first step," Harper said. "In a military or battlefield-like environment, can we have robotic convoys?"
The students have entered their Knight Rider VIP in a California competition in the hopes of winning a top prize worth $2 million.
It took one year and about 10 people to build.
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Print | posted on Thursday, October 11, 2007 7:39 PM