Gallery: Autonomous Cars Through the Ages
01gm-futurama-worlds-fair-1939
<style type="text/css"> <p>.autonomous_left_rail { width:200px; border-bottom: 5px solid #333; border-top: 5px solid #333; font-size: 1.2em; } #content .autonomous_left_rail p { margin:0px; font-size:12px; } .autonomous_coming_soon { color:#999; } .gallery_title { font-weight:bold; padding-top:5px; padding-bottom:10px; font-size: 1.2em; } </style></head><body> [Let the Robot Drive: The Autonomous Car of the Future Is Here](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/magazine/2012/01/ff_autonomouscars/?utm_source=wired.com&utm_medium=sidebar&utm_campaign=historytofeatureclicks) [Navigating the Legality of Autonomous Vehicles](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/autopia/2012/02/autonomous-vehicle-legality/?utm_source=wired.com&utm_medium=sidebar&utm_campaign=featuretolegalityclicks) [Mapping the Road Ahead for Autonomous Cars](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/autopia/2012/02/autonomous-vehicles-q-and-a/?utm_source=wired.com&utm_medium=sidebar&utm_campaign=historytoqandaclicks ) [Five Reasons The Robo-Car Haters Are Wrong](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/autopia/2012/02/robo-car-haters-are-wrong/) Humans have since the days of [Leonardo da Vinci’s supposed robotic cart](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wired/archive/12.11/davinci.html) dreamed of true *auto*mobiles: Self-driving cars. As microprocessors and sensing technologies have grown smaller, cheaper and more powerful, and with cars bristling with [sophisticated electronic control systems](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/magazine/2010/12/ff_ai_drivebywire/all/1), that day is upon us. [Google's self-driving Toyota Prius](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/autopia/2012/02/autonomous-vehicle-legality/) hybrids already are racking up more miles than the typical California driver. Here is a capsule history of key developments on [the road to autonomous vehicles](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/magazine/2012/01/ff_autonomouscars/all/1). Glimpsing the Future -------------------- The idea of autonomous vehicles gained widespread public exposure at GM's Futurama exhibit at the 1939 World’s Fair, where the automaker envisioned "abundant sunshine, fresh air \[and\] fine green parkways" upon which cars would drive themselves. "By 1953," historian Jameson Wetmore wrote in *[Driving the Dream](http://bit.ly/xLBuhc)*, "GM and RCA had developed a scale model automated highway system, which allowed them to begin experimenting with how electronics could be used to steer and maintain proper following distance." In 1958, Wetmore notes, the company tested a 1958 Chevrolet with a front-end featuring "pick-up coils" that could "sense the alternating current of a wire embedded in the road and would adjust the steering wheel accordingly." As GM described it, "The car rolled along the two-lane check road and negotiated the banked turn-around loops at either end without the driver’s hands on the steering wheel." *Photo: General Motors*
02stanford-cart-autonomous-vehicle
The First Smart Cars -------------------- First envisaged as a platform for lunar rovers, the [Stanford Cart](http://www.stanford.edu/~learnest/cart.htm) (above) of the 1960s and '70s was a simple buggy equipped with a video camera and remote control with a very long cable. Over time, however, the cart was imbued with greater intelligence and image processing capabilities. In 1979 Hans Moravec achieved what was at the time a signal achievement in robotic mobility: "The cart successfully crossed a chair-filled room without human intervention in about five hours." The cart, ranked 10th on Wired’s list of the [50 best robots ever](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wired/archive/14.01/robots.html), would pave the way for Stanford’s autonomous Volkswagen Touareg, Stanley. What could be called the first truly autonomous car — meaning it could process images of the road ahead — was unveiled in 1977 by S. Tsugawa and his colleagues at Japan’s Tsukuba Mechanical Engineering Laboratory. As autonomous car legend Ernst Dickmanns tells it, the car was equipped with two cameras that used analog computer technology for signal processing. It was capable of speeds up to 30 km/h (18.6 mph) but was aided by an elevated rail. *Photo: Stanford University*
03vamp-autonomous-car
VaMoRs and VaMP --------------- German aerospace engineer Ernst Dickmanns at Bundeswehr University Munich inaugurated a series of projects in the 1980s that eventually earned him the sobriquet "the pioneer of the autonomous car." In 1987, VaMoRs, outfitted with two cameras, eight 16-bit Intel microprocessors and a host of other sensors and software, drove more than 90 km/h (56 mph) for roughly 20 kilometers. Seven years later, VaMP, with its two cameras processing 320 by 240 pixels per image at a range of 100 meters, could recognize road markings, its relative position in the lane and the presence of other vehicles. In a test drive near Paris the car drove at up at 130 km/h (81 mph) in simulated traffic, even judging whether it was safe to change lanes. The next year, Dickmann’s team piloted a Mercedes S-Class from Munich to Odense, Denmark, a trip of more than 1,600 kilometers at a maximum speed of 180 km/h (112 mph) with, [as Dickmanns notes](http://bit.ly/wTWU4y), "about 95% of the distance ... traveled fully automatically." The success of these vehicles redirected research away from cars guided by inductive signals received from buried cables toward vision-based systems for lateral guidance. *Photo: Ernst Dickmanns*
Image: Courtesy Orabrush04cmu-navlab5-autonomous-vehicle
No Hands Across America ----------------------- In 1995, Carnegie Mellon University roboticists drove [NavLab 5](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/tjochem/www/nhaa/navlab5_details.html), a 1990 Pontiac Trans Sport, from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles on a trip billed, "[No Hands Across America](http://bit.ly/Hr5JL)." The vehicle's add-ons included what the research team called "a portable computer, a windshield-mounted camera, a GPS receiver, as well as some other supplementary equipment." The car completed an "autonomous driving percentage" of 98.2 percent, needing a bit of help with obstacle avoidance, among other things. The longest stint without human help stretched nearly 70 miles. Upon arriving in L.A., the team met Jay Leno, who told them he "wouldn't have much use for this technology" because he so loves driving. *Photo: Carnegie Mellon University*
05carnegie-mellon-university-sandstorm-autonomous-vehicle
A Grand Challenge ----------------- Eager to foster the development of robotic cars, Darpa staged the first long-distance competition for autonomous vehicles in 2004. Fifteen vehicles competed in the inaugural Grand Challenge, but none came anywhere close to completing the 150-mile course through the Mojave. Carnegie Mellon's Red Team Racing fared the best, completing 7.3 miles with Sandstorm, its autonomous Humvee, before running off the road in a hairpin turn and getting hung up on an embankment. *Photo: Carnegie Mellon University*
A portion of the jury verdict form from Thursday's trial.06volkswagen-stanley-autonomous-vehicle
An Even Bigger Challenge ------------------------ Undeterred, Darpa doubled the prize money to $2 million for the 2005 Grand Challenge. Twenty-three teams lined up for the 132-mile race through the Mojave; five reached the finish. It was a challenging run that included three tunnels, more than 100 turns and navigating a steep pass with sharp drop-offs. Stanford University took first place with Stanley, an autonomous Volkswagen Tourareg (above) that completed the course in 6 hours and 54 minutes. *Photo: Volkswagen*
GM07gm-chevrolet-tahoe-wins-first-prize-at-darpa-urban-challenge
The Grand Challenge Goes Urban ------------------------------ Darpa made things a little tougher in 2007 when it staged a 60-mile race in an urban environment. Eighty-nine teams entered, and 11 made it to the start. The course included 4 miles of k-rail enclosed "streets" where entrants had to cope with manned-vehicle traffic at the former George Air Force Base. Carnegie Mellon's team, Tartan Racing, completed the course in a bit more than 4 hours and 10 minutes with a Chevrolet Tahoe it named "Boss" (above). [](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/images_blogs/autopia/2012/02/Volkswagen-Junior-autonomous-Passat.jpg) Stanford's Sebastian Thrun (above, with second-place finisher "Junior") led the development of Junior, the school's autonomous Volkswagen Passat that traversed the course in 4 hours, 29 minutes and change. Reflecting on the difference between vehicle behavior in the Grand Challenge and Google’s fleet of cars, Thrun notes "anytime two cars faced off at an intersection and something went wrong, Darpa manually paused vehicles — to make sure things were smooth. There were a number of major congestions. Cars did face and navigate intersections successfully, but nowhere near with the competency that you find for example \[with Google’s cars\] in downtown San Francisco." *Photos: General Motors, Volkswagen*
08parma-vislab-autonomous-vehicle
University of Parma's Road Trip ------------------------------- Parma’s VISLAB undertook the most geographically daunting autonomous car journey in 2010, driving from Parma to Shanghai. The trip took them 16,000 kilometers through nine countries in 100 days. In Russia (where the [car had its first accident](http://viac.vislab.it/?p=1186), due to human error), the team nearly notched another record: The first autonomous vehicle to be ticketed by a traffic cop. As the team noted, it dodged the ticket either due to its skills in "Latin oratory" or because of the officer’s "embarrassment in not knowing in what name to issue the ticket." *Photo: University of Parma*
09shelley-autonomous-audi-tts
Shelley Climbs the Mountain --------------------------- [Audi's autonomous TTS](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/autopia/2010/03/audi-autonomous-tts-pikes-peak/) is named for racer Michele Mouton, an Audi rally driver and the first woman to win the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb. Shelley, designed by Chris Gerdes and his colleagues at the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford University, is packed with GPS, wheel speed sensors and traction control algorithms that allow the car to handle "at the limits." The car [conquered the 12.42-mile sprint to the summit of Pike’s Peak](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/autopia/2010/11/audis-robotic-car-climbs-pikes-peak/) in 27 minutes. Sure, that’s 17 minutes off the human record, but considering the first human-guided, steam-powered car took more than nine hours to make the ascent in 1901, it is an auspicious debut for a computer-controlled car. *Photo: Audi. Shelley on the salt at Bonneville during testing.*
Sandra Chereb10google-autonomous-toyota-prius
Google Goes Driving ------------------- Google's fleet of seven autonomous Toyota Prius hybrids has racked up more than 140,000 miles with only occasional human intervention since hitting the road in 2010. The Google Driverless Car program is led by Darpa Grand Challenge alum Sebastian Thrum. The cars use data from Google Street View coupled with data from cameras, LIDAR and radar to determine the car's position on a map. The system works remarkably well; the cars have successfully negotiated San Francisco's Lombard Street (eight hairpin turns on one block), circumnavigated Lake Tahoe and even driven from Mountain View to Santa Monica. Don't worry — there's always a human behind the wheel, just in case. Google, like other autonomous vehicle advocates, believes the technology will increase safety, reduce congestion and ease emissions. Last summer, Nevada passed a law allowing autonomous cars on state roads, further paving the road ahead for driverless cars. *Photo: Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval takes a spin in one of Google's autonomous autos. Sandoval described the experience as "amazing." Sandra Chereb/Associated Press*
