Autonomous Automobiles: Developing Cars That Drive Themselves

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people are killed in road accidents, with millions more injured. The vast majority of these accidents are due to human error, with less than 10% caused by vehicle defects. Such staggering findings motivate the use of driver assistant systems and fully autonomous vehicles to increase driver and passenger safety. This talk will explore developments in driver assistant systems and autonomous vehicles. In particular, the urban challenge competition will be focused on, in which fully- autonomous passenger vehicles will conduct navigation missions in urban environments. The goal of the urban challenge is to develop vehicles that can safely drive themselves in realistic urban settings. To succeed, the vehicles must obey traffic laws while safely merging into moving traffic, driving through traffic circles and busy intersections, and parking in parking lots. This represents a significant leap in autonomous vehicle technology and has required advances in sensing, autonomous reasoning, and semiconductor technology. This talk will discuss some of the challenges involved and will provide example results from Carnegie Mellon University's entry into the urban challenge.