ROBOT-guided Volkswagen won a $2.5 million race across the Nevada desert yesterday, beating four other vehicles in a contest aimed at making warfare safer for humans.
The Pentagon-sponsored race displayed huge technological leaps since last year's inaugural race, when none of the self-driving vehicles crossed the finish line.
Stanley the Volkswagen, a VW Touareg designed by Stanford University, zipped through the 212km Mojave Desert course in six hours and 53 minutes. It used only its computer brain and sensors to navigate rough and twisting desert and mountain trails designed to imitate conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Stanford computer scientist Sebastian Thrun said he wanted to design automated systems to make next-generation cars safer for everyone, not just the military.
The vehicles were decked out with the latest sensors, lasers, cameras and radar that feed data to onboard computers, which helped them distinguish dangerous boulders from tumbleweeds and decide whether chasms were too deep to cross.
The course comprised winding dirt trails and dry lake beds filled with overhanging brush. – AP
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