Broad Area Colloquium For AI-Geometry-Graphics-Robotics-Vision
(CS 528)

The DARPA Grand Challenges: From Desert to Urban Autonomous Driving

Mike Montemerlo
Department of Computer Science
Stanford University

May 21, 2007, 4:15PM
TCSeq 200
http://graphics.stanford.edu/ba-colloquium/

Abstract

In October 2005, a team of Stanford students, faculty, and staff took part in a landmark robotics competition called the DARPA Grand Challenge. Our entry, an autonomous Volkswagen SUV named Stanley, won the race and a $2,000,000 prize by driving 150 miles across the Mojave Desert without any human intervention. So if Stanley is such a great driver, why can't he drive me to work each morning? In my talk, I will to convince you why autonomous city driving is a hard AI problem, and introduce the Urban Grand Challenge (the next DARPA Grand Challenge) Finally, I will unveil Stanford's latest self-driving car "Junior" and show our latest research progress.

About the Speaker

Mike Montemerlo is a Senior Research Engineer in the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab. He received his B.S. and M.S. in Electrical/Computer Engineering and his PhD in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University. He was the software lead for Stanley, the robot that won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge.

Contact: bac-coordinators@cs.stanford.edu

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