Robot car competition winner on display
Stanley, a robotic, driver-less car developed by Stanford University and Volkswagen, won the DARPA Grand Challenge in the Mojave Desert in the fall of 2005; it is now on display — appropriately, at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose
Visiting California this summer? Note that Touareg Stanley will be on display at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California, from 20 June to 18 July 2008. You may recall that it was here in the Silicon Valley region near San Francisco that the Stanley project was originally born. Stanley was the first automobile to master DARPA’s Grand Challenge for robot cars, gaining itself the reputation of a pioneering development project for autonomous vehicles. The Touareg set out on the 212 kilometer race through the Mojave Desert on 8 October 2005, competing with a field of twenty-two other competitors . Stanley and the other cars travelled through the desert all on their own — no driver, no external intervention. Stanley was the first to cross the finishing line after six hours, 53 minutes, and 58 seconds. Never before had a motor vehicle managed anything close to such a distance completely autonomously.
This prototype is equipped with an array of driver-assistance systems which are now featured in standard-production vehicles. Those systems include, among others, the Electric Stabilization Program and Navigation Assistance, Automatic Distance Control plus Front Assist for a reduced braking distance, as well as the Lane Assist lane-keeping system. Special high-tech fittings in the Stanley also include laser detectors, stereo optical devices, radar sensors, exceptionally precise GPS systems, and control software specifically developed for the vehicle. Like its successor project, “Junior”, Stanley is the product of collaboration between the Stanford University (which gave the car its name) and the Volkswagen Electronics Research Laboratory — both based in California’s Silicon Valley. The third participant in the project was the Volkswagen Research and Development division in Wolfsburg.
The Tech Museum of Innovation opened in 1990. Its mission is to promote understanding, through interactive displays, for the different fields of technology which determine our everyday lives. The museum attracts some 650,000 visitors to its various exhibitions every year. These exhibitions focus on a variety of aspects in an attempt to capture the pioneering spirit of Silicon Valley and the inventive spirit of engineers. Stanley’s exhibition tour began in 2006 at the biggest museum of technology in the world. The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., devoted a special exhibition to the Touareg. The tour then travelled on to Singapore, Johannesburg, Munich, Copenhagen, and now to San Jose. In autumn 2008 the Stanley will be handed over to the Smithsonian Museum, where it will be put on permanent display.
