Navlab is a series of
autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles developed by teams from The Robotics Institute at the
School of Computer Science,
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...
. Later models were produced under a new department created specifically for the research called "The Carnegie Mellon University Navigation Laboratory".
Navlab 5 notably steered itself almost all the way from Pittsburgh to San Diego.
History
Research on computer controlled vehicles began at
Carnegie Mellon in 1984
[ as part of the DARPA Strategic Computing Initiative and production of the first vehicle, Navlab 1, began in 1986.]
Applications
The vehicles in the Navlab series have been designed for varying purposes, "... off-road scouting; automated highways; run-off-road collision prevention; and driver assistance for maneuvering in crowded city environments. Our current work involves pedestrian detection, surround sensing, and short range sensing for vehicle control."[
]
Vehicles
The institute has made vehicles with the designations Navlab 1 through 10.[ The vehicles were mainly semi-autonomous, though some were fully autonomous and required no human input.][
Navlab 1 was built in 1986 using a ]Chevrolet
Chevrolet ( ), colloquially referred to as Chevy and formally the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors Company, is an American automobile division of the American manufacturer General Motors (GM). Louis Chevrolet (1878–1941) and ous ...
panel van.[ The van had 5 racks of computer hardware, including 3 Sun workstations, video hardware and GPS receiver, and a ]Warp
Warp, warped or warping may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Books and comics
* WaRP Graphics, an alternative comics publisher
* ''Warp'' (First Comics), comic book series published by First Comics based on the play ''Warp!''
* Warp (comics), a ...
supercomputer.[ The vehicle suffered from software limitations and was not fully functional until the late 80s, when it achieved its top speed of .][
Navlab 2 was built in 1990 using a US Army ]HMMWV
The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV; colloquial: Humvee) is a family of light, four-wheel drive, military trucks and utility vehicles produced by AM General. It has largely supplanted the roles previously performed by the ori ...
.[ Computer power was uprated for this new vehicle with three Sparc 10 computers, "for high level data processing", and two 68000-based computers "used for low level control".][ The Hummer was capable of driving both off- or on-road. When driving over rough terrain, its speed was limited with a top speed of . When Navlab 2 was driven on-road it could achieve as high as ][
Navlab 1 and 2 were semi-autonomous and used "... steering wheel and drive shaft encoders and an expensive inertial navigation system for position estimation."][
Navlab 5 used a 1990 Pontiac Trans Sport minivan. In July 1995, the team took it from Pittsburgh to San Diego on a proof-of-concept trip, dubbed "No Hands Across America", with the system navigating for all but 50 of the 2850 miles, averaging over 60 MPH. In 2007, Navlab 5 was added to the Class of 2008 inductees of the Robot Hall of Fame.]
See also
* Driverless car
References
External links
The Robotics Institute website
{{Autonomous cars and enabling technologies
Experimental self-driving cars
Carnegie Mellon University
Robots of the United States
1986 robots
1990 robots
2007 robots