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21 April
2008 Autonomous Car
Takes A Lap At Toyota Grand Prix Most people don't
go to auto races to see cars parade around the
track in single file at 30 miles an hour. Then
again, most race cars include drivers. Lockheed
Martin
Racing Team's autonomous car joined two others at
the Toyota
Long Beach Grand
Prix on
April 20 for the first ever Robotic Grand Prix.
While not technically a race, the cars demonstrated
to 180,000 race fans that robotic cars can
successfully run a lap around the challenging track
without human intervention, guided only by their
on-board sensors and software. See the latest
Sport
Betting Odds. Before the
autonomous demonstration, Lockheed Martin displayed
its car at the Toyota Lifestyle and Alternative
Energy Expo. Race fans had the opportunity to see
the car and talk with some of the engineers who
developed the car's robotics technology, which
enabled the vehicle to successfully complete the
1.97-mile circuit, which includes 11
turns. "We are proud to
introduce our car to a group of race fans who may
never have expected to see Lockheed Martin or
robotic cars at the Grand Prix," said Project
Manager Brian Satterfield, Lockheed Martin Advanced
Technology Laboratories (ATL). "This isn't science
fiction; it's reality. We want to help people
better understand how robotics and autonomous
technology are becoming an increasingly important
part of everyday life." ATL's Robotic
car, a red Toyota Prius hybrid, was the Ben
Franklin Racing Team's backup vehicle during a
November 2007 event called Urban Challenge,
sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency (DARPA). In that event, robotic automobiles
had to intelligently and safely drive themselves
through a 60-mile urban course in less than six
hours. The cars had to obey traffic laws while
merging into moving traffic, navigating circles,
negotiating intersections and avoiding
obstacles. Of the 89 teams
that initially entered the 2007 DARPA Urban
Challenge, only 11 qualified to compete in the
final competition. The Ben Franklin Racing Team, a
consortium led by the University of Pennsylvania
with Lehigh University and ATL, was one of only six
teams to have a vehicle successfully complete the
final race. Since the
competition Lockheed Martin engineers have updated
and improved their car's software, giving the
vehicle the ability to autonomously navigate
complex environments, often in close contact with
humans or manned vehicles, and exhibit intelligent
and complex behaviors. They are transitioning this
technology into the Squad Mission Support System,
an unmanned off-road vehicle that Lockheed Martin
Missiles and Fire Control is developing for the
U.S. military. |
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