I forgot to mention yesterday that the Stanford University entrant into DARPA's Grand Challenge robotic vehicle contest won the $2 million USD prize this past weekend. The winning Volkswagen Touareg SUV completed the 131.6 mile off-road course in six hours and 53 minutes (averaging about 19 mph).
Not only did the Stanford entrant complete the course, but so did four others. This is an amazing result considering that the last time the Challenge was run no one made it more than 7.5 miles. This is an incredible leap forward in integrating the systems required to autonomously navigate difficult terrain.
The VW is controlled by seven Intel Pentium M class computers and "four laser range finders, a radar system, a stereo camera pair, and a monocular vision system."
Congratulations to the entire Stanford team in their brilliant achievement.
Aloha!
