Autoblog

If you're really looking forward to the day when your car says, "You just relax, Dave, and let me do the driving," it just got a little bit closer. GM and Carnegie Mellon University have announced a 5-year, $5 million Collaborative Research Laboratory (CRL) to do work on autonomous vehicles.

Carnegie Mellon's Tartan Racing entrant in last year's DARPA Urban Challenge, Boss (pictured), was the first across the line. The winning partnership and the $2 million winners check made it a natural fit for the two to combine on further research now that the major technical issues have been mostly addressed. The two parties also have another CRL, separate from the autonomous research, that has been going on for eight years.

The autonomous research will be focused on developing the underlying technologies for autonomous vehicles. According to Professor Rajkumar, "Autonomous vehicles will change the face of transportation by reducing deaths and injuries from automobile accidents and increasing the convenience and comfort of vehicles." Until they become self aware and decide to take over the Skynet system, at least...

[Source: GM]

After the DARPA dust settled, only 40 minutes separated the first, second and third place contenders for this year's $2 million bounty. The Carnegie Mellon team, behind the virtual wheel of a tech'd-out Tahoe dubbed the "Boss," won the DARPA Urban Challenge, the first event held in a mock city environment.

The Mellon crew beat out Stanford, Virginia Tech and MIT, and according to Wired's report, none of the top competitors were cited for traffic violations – something that most manned vehicles can't claim. Average speeds ranged from 13 to 14 mph over the course of the 55-mile trek. There was no mention of top speed and we're still uncertain about what specific obstacles were set out to befuddled the ghosts inside the machine.

There's no word yet on whether the DARPA event will continue, as many maintain that since the technical end of things have been sorted, it's time for private firms to take the lead. We'll have more on DARPA when Mr. McElroy reports on the event later in the week.

[Sources: GM (Press Release after the jump), Wired]

Remember William "Red" Whittaker? He is the ex-marine turned college prof that competed in both the 2004 and 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge with a pair of autonomous H1 HUMMERs named H1ghlander and Sandstorm. Unfortunately for Red, neither HUMMER was able to beat Stanley, the autonomous Volkswagen Touareg from Standard, in last year's challenge that actually saw competitors finish the course for the first time.

Things might be different at next year's DARPA Urban Challenge in which vehicles will have to autonomously pilot themselves through a 60-mile urban course. Red and his team at Carnegie Mellon University will partner with General Motors this year to form Tartan Racing and field a driverless Tahoe as their entrant. Not only does Carnegie Mellon get the free SUV to use, the team will be composed of researchers from both the university and GM. The automaker sees the sponsorship as the fastest way to advance the research and development of future driving aid technologies, while we get the feeling that Red and the college boys just want to beat the pants off of Stanford next year.

[Source: GM]

Related posts:

• The Great Robot Race adds dimension to DARPA Challenge
• DARPA Grand Challenge won by Stanford's Stanley
• DARPA Grand Challenge hits the streets with Urban Challenge

We all know the basic facts about the DARPA Grand Challenge that pitted over 20 autonomous vehicles against each other and the elements out in the Mojave Desert last October. After watching the NOVA special The Great Robot Race on PBS last night the entire enterprise has taken on a whole new dynamic thanks to the excellent backstory provided by the program that reaches all the way back to the first DARPA Grand Challenge in 2004.

While The Great Robot Race features background on many contenders, including a “nobody” darkhorse team from New Orleans that finished fourth overall just weeks after Katrina blew through its hometown, the main push of the program centers around the two teams from Stanford and Carnegie Mellon. Sebastian Thrun heads the Stanford team, which is actually comprised of Carnegie Mellon defectors including Thrun himself, and they enter Stanley, a Touareg donated by Volkswagen, in the contest. Red Whittaker, an ex-marine turned college prof who presides over an army of graduate students and a pair of autonomous H1 Hummers named “H1ghlander” and “Sandstorm”, leads the Carnegie Mellon team.

Read on for more of the gritty details that led up to a showdown of these two teams in the desert.