#darpa

DARPA is looking to revolutionize vehicle design, similar to how it helped change the computer circuit board manufacturing process. DARPA announced a program last year, Advanced Vehicle Make (AVM), as a suite of associated programs that are “trying to enhance the adaptability of our military forces by compressing the development timelines for complex defense systems by at least five times,” program manager Paul Eremenko said.

Audi‘s autonomous TTS ascended Pikes Peak without any human controlling it, but the trip took 10 minutes longer than normal, due to lower than average speeds.

While a normal trip up the 14,110 foot mountain takes about 17 minutes, the autonomous TTS took 27 minutes. Speeds were much slower than with a human driver, with the TTS topping out at 47 mph at one point. To tackle Pikes Peak, Audi had to install both new hardware and software so that the TTS could negotiate the mountain.

Volkswagen and Audi have a long association with the DARPA-backed autonomous driving project, which offers cash prizes to whoever can sucessfully develop a vehicle that can drive itself without human inputs.

[Source: Audi]

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