Monday 22nd November 2010

Auto-Pilot Audi TT Climbs Pikes Peak

Video: driverless TTS completes the world's most famous hill climb course

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An autonomous Audi TTS developed by VW'a Electronics Research Lab, Stanford University and Audi has completed a run of the Pikes Peak hill climb course (cue bad pun about hairdresser TT drivers now being able to spend all their time looking in the mirror).

The self-driving TT took to the Pikes Peak course back in September and clocked up a time of 27 minutes fro the 12.42-mile course, and nudging a max speed of 47mph along the way.

Now, that might not sound brilliant, considering that a human driver could be expected to take a similar car up the hill in around 17 minutes, but it is a big step towards the experimental car's ultimate target of actually competing on the event for real.

 

[Greg_D]

these things really are coming along now, aren't they. That's pretty cool

Greg

[veejdub]

pretty cool idea- takes the fun out of DRIVING though

[ZOLLAR]

veejdub said:

pretty cool idea- takes the fun out of DRIVING though

I'm sure if these things became an everyday Facility on cars there would be some sort of off button.
I wonder what happens in the event of an accident what the insurance implications are?

Edited by ZOLLAR on Monday 22 November 09:12

[exceed]

well of course you would sue the manufacturer, you were but a mere passenger after all

[Dr G]

Sleep in the car, wake up when you get to the office - I'm in

[rsv gone!]

And the helicopter that filmed it (obviously piloted by humans) crashed.

http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2010-09/helicop...

[ZOLLAR]

exceed said:

well of course you would sue the manufacturer, you were but a mere passenger after all

No doubt somebody is bound to try and sue a manufacturer if there is an accident, so I'm guessing that when the vehicle is purchased there would be some sort of "disclaimer"?, very grey area.

[WMP]

Its all a bit IRobot this - Audis driving themselves...

My view is the same as Will Smith's character in the film, I don't like it one bit.

Give me a human every time!

[Corsair7]

Artical said:

(cue bad pun about hairdresser TT drivers now being able to spend all their time looking in the mirror).

People that say this are brainless losers that couldn't come up with something original and funny on their own. Time they got a life.


(no, not hairdresser or TT owner)

[PetrolAholic]

rsv gone! said:

And the helicopter that filmed it (obviously piloted by humans) crashed.

http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2010-09/helicop...

Had to click the link to see if it was real..... And LOL!

[soad]

st, more complications. Computer-driven witchcraft

[sanctum]

Good to see this sort of thing coming along well. However, this isn't the most strenuous of challenges is it?

Given enough memory cache, you could have programmed Big Trak to climb an abandoned road at a sedate pace.

[p1doc]

that is amazing as pike's peak isnt exactly straight!
martin

[Ex Boy Racer]

I hear that Lotus are planning to offer 3 driverless cars in the next 2 years. A 2 door, 3 door and 4 door. Announcement on the way...

[Mr Gear]

I'd be interested to know how it actually navigates. I presume a mixture of GPS and sensors to judge distance from the edge of the road etc. Anyone got the info?

[Ryvita]

Somebody has to say it.

"I for one welcome our new autonomous overlords..."

[sprinter1050]

Seems like there's a lot more tarmac on that Pikes Peak than on the videos of the Hyundai/Toyota etc specials runs !!

Is it a "special" Pikes Peak" for "Autonomous Audi TTS " cars

[dave_s13]

Seriously, why?

What is the ultimate aim of developing what appears to be utterly useless technology.

[300bhp/ton]

Greg_D said:

these things really are coming along now, aren't they. That's pretty cool

Greg

Maybe I'm dimissing the effort gone into this. But I'm honestly not all that impressed. Video games are and have been able for ages to be "programmed" to follow a route.

All this does is use a combo of a predifed route, map and some on board senser to help it detect where it is. All of which is current or old tech, nothing is really new here. For example planes and boats have had "auto pilot" modes for ages.

I also struggle to see the real world use of such a system, no road infrastructure exists to truly make use of such a system. Sure it's all fine working in controlled conditions with clear road edges or on a route such as this which has evidently had much pre-run effort involved in it. But out in the real world with unknowns and country lanes that have little or no defined road edges I think it's a different story.


Also, are car makers truly wanting to take responsability for any accidents that arise if such a system is used? The driver will no longer be a driver, so can't be at fault.

And accidents will happen, for proof just look at how many issues and errors SatNavs have, how many roads do they not know about, or want to take you the wrong way, or at the wrong speed.

[iain1970]

I like it. Tomorrow's World promised this kind of stuff for the future and it's only just taking shape.

Can't wait for the promised 'paperless office' to emerge. I've had to shovel 40 tonnes of emailled invoices (sent to protect the environment and ps off the VAT people) off my desk to type this.