German Chancellor Dedicates VAIL, We Go For A Ride In A Self-Parking Car
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Friday, 16 of April , 2010 at 3:49 am
BotJunkie got invited to the official dedication of the Volkswagen Automotive Innovation Laboratory at Stanford yesterday. You remember VAIL, right? They’re the people who taught this car to park itself.
Anyway, this was our first invitation to an event involving a major head of state, so after we got through the Secret Service checkpoints and the camera sniffing dogs, we got to see the dedication ceremony and ribbon cutting by Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany:
And here’s what was behind the ribbon:
As you can see, Shelley got a sexy new paint job for the occasion. At this point, she’s more or less all ready to take on the Pike’s Peak course autonomously… Next up are some high speed just-for-fun-and-breaking-the-robotic-speed-record runs out in the desert, and the duplication of a portion of the course on some flat ground without any cliffs to see how she does in the turns at full speed. The only major hardware concern is that Shelley currently does not have any obstacle avoidance sensors. So, if some hapless hiker decides to trek up Pike’s Peak at the same time as the robot does, there’s the risk of some hiker bits getting stuck to the front grille and ruining the aerodynamics of the car. One option is some form of telemonitoring, but they’re still working through ideas.
After the VIPs and their armored SUV convoy left, we had a chance to play around a little bit, and snagged ourselves a ride in Junior 3, VAIL’s self-parking Volkswagen Passat:
While we were sitting in the car for this demo, the way it’s ultimately designed to work is that you get out of the car, and tell it to go park itself using the iPhone app. When you want it back, hit the return button on your phone, and it comes back to you. It’s that easy. For more on the technology behind this, check out our post from last year on Junior 3′s autonomous parking capability.
Comments (8)
Category: Artificial Intelligence,Consumer,Research
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Comment by psicoterapeuta roma
Made Friday, 23 of April , 2010 at 4:41 pm
The content of these resource is really awsome and self inspiring.
Comment by Joseph Singer
Made Sunday, 25 of April , 2010 at 4:06 pm
One of the backup lights is out!
Comment by quantum_flux
Made Sunday, 10 of October , 2010 at 7:34 pm
Very nice, so long sleazy ballet parkers, my car parks itself!
Comment by Laureen Strand
Made Monday, 8 of November , 2010 at 9:58 am
I’d come to allow with you on this. Which is not something I usually do! I love reading a post that will make people think. Also, thanks for allowing me to comment!
Comment by homepage
Made Sunday, 16 of January , 2011 at 9:15 am
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Comment by Gayle Juerfdy
Made Wednesday, 17 of August , 2011 at 11:00 am
Extremely well i love to have a self-parking car especially for my wife! I am joking. Anyway very good technology five star rating.
Comment by new mover program
Made Monday, 21 of November , 2011 at 3:56 pm
Witty! I’m bookmarking you site for future use.
Comment by website
Made Monday, 16 of January , 2012 at 7:45 pm
2 ice
