Drive And Park Besides hoping to win the competition, the team, headed by robotics professor William "Red" Whittaker, is looking to develop autonomous driving technologies that can be used in production vehicles. Self-parking is one key area the team is targeting.
As any driver knows, parking is a talent that can take a human many years to perfect—some people never quite manage to master the skill. For Boss, parking is largely a matter of deduction. The vehicle must flawlessly execute a series of decisions, often involving forward and reverse motions, and perform precise tight turns to position itself correctly (Fig. 3). So far, Boss has contended with parking lots cluttered with obstacles, yet still needs to improve its ability to navigate around moving obstacles, such as lighting pylons and shopping carts.
Hands Free Sadekar says it's only a matter of time before autonomous driving becomes a mainstream technology. "I can see, within the decade, people having autonomous vehicles that would drive on freeways," she says. In fact, one autonomous function, adaptive cruise control, has been offered with some GM vehicles since 2004.
"With traditional cruise control, you can set a speed and your car will keep going at that speed," Sadekar says. "With adaptive cruise control, if someone cuts in front of you, your car automatically slows down to a point where it keeps a certain distance between you and the car ahead of you."
GM is now looking to combine adaptive cruise control with "lane keeping," a function being tested on Boss. "With lane keeping, cameras look at lane markers on freeways and can automatically steer the vehicle to keep you within the lane," Sadekar says. "So now, you have two of these elements where you can keep yourself in the lane and you can keep a safe distance from the guy in front of you."
With Boss, the Carnegie Mellon team hopes to live up to the impressive track record set by the vehicle's namesake, Charles F. "Boss" Kettering (1876-1958). Founder of Delco and GM Research, Kettering was a prolific inventor whose creations included the all-electric ignition system, the lightweight diesel engine, and safety glass. "Boss is something that would have really excited Kettering," Sadekar says. "It's a way of keeping his spirit alive."
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