I know I am going to date myself (not that kind!), but I still recall with wonder the GM exhibit at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York.  It showed the kind of future I think we all hoped for- and never got.  Where did our idealism go?  However, that’s not the topic for today.

A fortnight ago, Google made news with its driverless Prius.  The cars had driven – with only one minor fender bender- some 140,000 miles.  (I actually thought that Google was perfecting this car so it could keep its maps up to date. ) It was interesting- but we really did not know what has been going on with unmanned ground vehicles (UGV).  Today, the news is everywhere.

It seems that Dr. Alberto Broggi (University of Parma) and his ViSLAB (artificial vision and intelligent systems labs) received a grant from the European Research Council to take the UGV concept to the next level.  After a brief presentation on the 16th of July, he and his team set off (20 July) on a 13,000 km journey from Parma to Shanghai (mimicking the old Silk Route)- in a few vehicles- with NO maps, through areas for which they had no prior knowledge.  (There were passengers for emergencies and to monitor the results; they also were responsible for picking up a hitchhiker.) The first 6500 km took them from Parma to Kazakhstan (through Europe and Russia); from there, they traversed the Gobi Desert to reach Shanghai on 28 October.

These vehicles were equipped with front and rear color vision systems (stereo), four solar-powered laser scanners, and seven video cameras.  They had (other than the solar) low-cost technology sensors and devices to enable them to navigate among wide variations in weather, road, and traffic conditions.

While there were four vehicles, two of the vans operated on this trip.  They were identical in design, but employed leader-follower procedures.  The first vehicle was virtually autonomous, conducting tests on the sensors and decision and subcontrol systems, collecting data throughout its travels.   The second vehicle followed the route defined by the first one, and was 100% autonomous (except for paying the tolls!), when the first vehicle was visible.  (Should it not be visible, the follower employs the GPS coordinates provided by the lead vehicle for it’s rough route, using sensors to refine the position on the road.)

The maximum speed for the vehicle was 85 km/h (38 mph).  The real practical issue was they needed to recharge the vehicles for 8 hours for every 2-3 hours of driving.

One would hope this experiment will induce industry and our governments to develop more interest in this technology.  First of all, as the GM exhibit intoned, our freeway traffic would be better controlled, operating at higher speeds, and with fewer (no?) interactions (that’s political speak for accidents). Secondly, this technology has tremendous merit for urban deliveries.  Finally, this technology can be used in concert with conventional driving to insure that we frail humans have something second-guessing us to insure that we reach our destinations safely.

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