2005 Robot Car Race - Winner....VW Touareg
 

Hey gang. Found this post from another forum and thought I'd share the info. Freaky.....but interesting. Thoughts?

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News: Volkswagen Touareg wins robot car race
10 Oct 05 16:06
A Volkswagen Touareg, converted by a team from Stanford University, has won this year's DARPA (the Pentagon's Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency) sponsored competition for autonomously-controlled vehicles.

The event involved a 132-mile obstacle course through the Mojave desert, with vehicles tackling mountain passes, rocks, lake beds and tunnels, all effectively driving themselves using GPS satellite technology, sensors and radar.

In last year's DARPA challenge, there were no finishers, and the winner - a Humvee-based car called Sandstorm, developed by a team from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh - completed just seven and a half miles. This year, however, five vehicles out of the 23 starters finished.

These were the Touareg; two new Humvees from Pittsburgh; a Ford Escape, developed by a team from New Orleans ,which competed despite many of the students losing their homes in Hurricane Katrina; and, after the 10-hour deadline, an OshKosh Truck called TerraMax. The Touareg, called Stanley, completed the course in six hours, 53 minutes and 58 seconds, reaching a top average speed of 19.1mph.

The Pentagon, which awarded $2m in prize money, is said to want 30% of its vehicles involved in ground combat to be driverless by 2015, to reduce the risks to soldiers

http://www.channel4.com/4car/news/ne...?news_id=13146

thats serious..