British-based auto-firm Delphi has completed a journey from San Francisco to New York with its self-driving car. The trip, announced in March, covered nearly 3,400 miles (5,500 km) and took nine days. Delphi says it is the first US coast-to-coast trip ever taken by an automated vehicle.
Delphi’s Roadrunner car set off with a group of engineers from Treasure Island in the San Francisco Bay on March 22. The subsequent journey took it through 15 states and the District of Columbia.
The Roadrunner was faced with a wide variety of driving situations to navigate during the trip, including traffic circles, construction zones, bridges, tunnels, aggressive drivers and differing weather conditions. Although an engineer was in the driving seat ready to take control if needed, Delphi says the car undertook 99 percent of the drive in fully automated mode.
The vehicle is equipped with numerous technologies in order to drive autonomously. These include six long-range radars, four short-range radars, three vision-based cameras, six Lidar sensors, a localization system, intelligent software algorithms and a full suite of Advanced Drive Assistance Systems.
The systems installed help with activities like collision mitigation, object detection, forward collision warnings and lane departure warnings. Over the course of the trip, nearly three terabytes of data was collected from the Roadrunner’s systems. The data collected will help Delphi to continue developing safety technology.
Go to gizmag to see the original article and a video diary of the nine-day trip.
