Remote Controlled cars have been around for quite some time now and the use of RF is nothing new to anyone Recently a challenge was presented, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Urban Grand Challenge Competition. It is a challenge presented by DARPA to build an autonomous vehicle capable of driving in traffic, performing complex maneuvers such as merging, passing parking and negotiating intersections.
This is just one school car that they entered in the DARPA Urban Grand Challenge. The school is Freie Universität Berlin in Germany.
They were of the semifinalist in the competition and they partnered with Frauhofer Gesellschact (IAIS), Rice University in Houston Texas, and Insituto Politecnico Nacional (Mexico). The car is called the "Spirit of Berlin," it uses drive by wire technology and they have a video of it. Check it out below,
For more info on the group and the autonomous car they built check out: "Spirit of Berlin"
The car seems very cool and seems to work very well, it maneuvers very well. Its ironic that the iPhone is in use instead of an in house RF remote control. This makes sense because of the limited range of RF, the iPhones accelerometer makes it a perfect candidate to help maneuver the car. Turing left and right is a cinch and turning the iPhone and holding it at 45 degrees in any direction causes the steering wheel to fully turn until it locks, which is usually about two and quarter full rotations. This seems the best way to go about dealing with steering inputs and managing how it affects steering output. Steering output if managed , linearly with the iPhone, with the 45 degree rotation would cause the car to oversteer for small inputs.
Check out the video from the competition
For more info on the competition: Urban Challenge
For more info on DARPA:DARPA
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