Driverless Cars

Samuel Erb CS534, Spring 2013

IMAGE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DesertToCity.jpg

Brief History

• Driverless car history dates back to the 1930’s with radio controlled vehicles

• Get’s interesting in the 1980• Ernst Dickmanns, leading a team at Bundeswehr University Munich

creates an autonomous 5-ton Mercedes-Benze van• By 1986 it can drive itself and by 1987 it can handle speeds

approaching 60mph• His work lead up to a 1995 1758km trip where the car was driven

95% of the time autonomously

How did Ernst do it?

• Ernst Dickmanns is considered to be the pioneer of the autonomous car

•  ”recursive estimation”• Ernst referred to using all available information to construct a complete

picture as “4-D” vision

• Kalman filter• Error correcting filter based on prior knowledge and an expectation of errors

& measurements have a Gaussian Distribution• First used in the navigation computer on the Apollo missions

• Artificial saccadic movements• We see the world with saccadic movements• Their entire system was capable of physically focusing on important objects

“4-D” vision

Brief History, continued

• The 1990’s were less than exciting. University funded research projects in the US & Italy effectively kept pace with Ernst.

Brief History, continued

• 2000’s - DARPA Grand Challenge!• Created due to a response to a congressional mandate that all US

military ground vehicles are to be unmanned by 2015• 2004 – 1st Grand Challenge, Mojave Desert, kind of a failure

• Furthest team, a Carnegie Mellon University’s converted Humvee, made it 7.32 miles of the 150 mile course

• 2005 – 2nd Grand Challenge, Mojave Desert, 5 finished!• Winner was the now iconic red bull decorated Stanford University

“Stanley” which did the 132 miles in just under 7 hours• 2007 – 3rd Grand Challenge, George Air Force Base, California

• Winner was Carnegie Mellon University’s “Boss” with a time of 4 hours over the 60 mile urban course

• Since 2008 – autonomous commercial vehicles. Mainly used in mining operations.

Boss (Carnegie Mellon University)

• Winner of the 2007 DARPA Grand Challenge

• Multiple layers:• Motion Planning – executes current motion goal• Trajectory Generation – “model-predictive trajectory generator”• On-Road Navigation – creates curve along center lane and aligns

rear tires• Zone Navigation – handles navigation when there are no lane

markers (Anytime D*)

• Never makes assumptions about objects (moving/not moving).

Boss, continued

• Anytime D*• A few variations, but main concept is iteratively

finding “better” solutions over time (typically “D* lite” is used)

• 2 second overview• Similar to A*, but can raise/lower estimated cost

while being computed• Starts from goal and works backwards, checking

for estimation inconsistancies• Can be modified in real-time as start moves

Boss, continued – errors observed

Future

• Many car models already include autonomous assists

• Within the next 3 years, many car manufacturers expect to have cars featuring steering, braking and lane guidance

• Within 5 years Google expects to release it’s technology

• Within the next 10 years many car manufacturers

expect to have fully autonomous cars for sale!

Image sources

• http://bergstromautomotive.blogspot.com/2012/02/autonomous-cars-through-ages.html

• http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/robotcars.html• http://

www.springer.com/engineering/mechanical+engineering/book/978-1-84628-637-7

• http://www.wired.com/autopia/wp-content/gallery/autonomous-vehicles/Carnegie-Mellon-Sandstorm-autonomous-vehicle.jpg

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DARPA_Challenge_RedTeam.jpg• http://cs.stanford.edu/group/roadrunner//

old/images/front_stanley_picture.gif • http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071105230951.htm• http://cdn0.mos.techradar.com//

art/internet/Google/google_automated_car-900-75.jpg

Sources

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driverless_car• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Dickmanns• http://www.ce.unipr.it/people/broggi/publications/expert.pdf• http://cis.temple.edu/~

latecki/Courses/RobotFall08/Papers/DickmannsIJCAI97.pdf• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccadic• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalman_filter• https://autodriving.googlecode.com/files/Boss.pdf• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D*• http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~ggordon/likhachev-etal.anytime-dstar.pdf