Vehicle Using Environmental Sensors from Continental Wins 2007 DARPA Grand Challenge

Successfully negotiating urban traffic without a driver

Frankfurt am Main, November 5, 2007 -- A vehicle equipped with environmental sensors and Sealant tires from Continental won in the 2007 DARPA Grand Challenge held in the USA. The world's best-known competition for completely autonomous cars ended on November 3 at the former George Air Force Base near the Californian town of Victorville. The car, designed by Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, was the first of the 36 teams in the semi-final to make it through five qualification rounds and reach the final. "This competition enables Continental Automotive Systems to drive forward the implementation of new technologies which will be used in driver assistance systems for production cars in the near future, representing a further step forward in improving road safety," said Dr. Karl-Thomas Neumann, chairman of the board of directors of Continental Automotive Systems and member of the management board of Continental AG.

Complex challenges involved in negotiating the course

While the first two races in 2004 and 2005 involved driving through the Nevada desert, the 2007 DARPA Challenge was a much tougher test: this time an authentic urban setting had been recreated on the test site on the former air force base in the Mojave desert, with narrow streets, lots of cars, intersections, junctions and parking lots. The competition was initiated by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the central research and development organization of the US Department of Defense and possibly best known for the ARPANET, a network developed in 1969 which is the predecessor of the global internet.

The vehicles had to complete the course on their own – without external intervention and, most importantly, without any collisions. "An accident would lead to immediate disqualification", said Dr.-Ing. Michael Darms, who has been working with the Tartan Racing team of Carnegie Mellon University on behalf of Continental Automotive Systems for almost two years. During the competition, the cars not only had to find a route through the simulated urban environment, coping on their own with unexpected traffic situations, but also had to drive to defined points such as a specified parking spot in a large parking lot. The winner of the competition was the vehicle that mastered these challenges in the shortest time. Not only did the cars have to complete the course without an accident, they also had to comply with all the rules of the road. The judges in the support vehicles penalized errors with penalty points which were added to the final time. The 100 kilometer course had to be completed within a time limit of six hours.

Radar, laser scanners and plenty of computing power on board

To cope with these tasks, the SUV, a Chevrolet Tahoe named "BOSS" after Charles F. "Boss“ Kettering (1876-1958), co-founder of Delco and Vice President of GM Research Corp., was fitted with more than a dozen environmental sensors. The infrared and radar sensors monitored the space around the vehicle, scanned the road ahead, detected other road users and identified any obstacles in the road. All this data had to be processed in real time, which required the computing power of ten high-performance PCs with Intel Core2Duo processors (2.16 GHz) on board the vehicle. A digital aerial photograph, a map of the test site and the mission to be completed were stored in the system, along with the speed limits for individual sections of the route and the locations of stop signs. The participating teams only received the map information 48 hours before the Challenge. Once the mission data had been supplied to the team on a USB stick, on the day of the Challenge the team had a maximum of five minutes to configure the vehicle so that it could calculate the route and complete the mission. Three missions had to be completed - with absolutely no further outside intervention. Only the judges had access to the vehicles, to put them momentarily in pause mode or to activate the emergency cut-out by remote control in the event of imminent danger, for example. Any such intervention was followed by immediate disqualification from the competition.

Challenges closely related to everyday traffic situations

The tasks that the vehicles had to overcome during the DARPA Grand Challenge were closely related to everyday traffic situations – and some of the technologies used have already been implemented in the driver assistance systems available today. "The car had to recognize the road to follow by itself," explained Michael Darms. This kind of technology is already used to help drivers keep in lane (Lane Departure Warning, Lane Change Assist). "Boss" also had to maintain the correct distance from vehicles in front and stop if confronted by any obstructions. "These functions are also offered by Adaptive Cruise Control", commented the engineer. However, some features were only required in the competition vehicle: for example, the technology had to decide for itself when to maneuver around a stationary car on the carriageway. To do this, the sensors monitored the oncoming traffic and the vehicle had to make its own judgement as to when the gap was large enough to pull out. The onboard technology also had to weigh up whether it was worth finding an alternative route if a street was judged to be permanently blocked. This function is also offered by navigation systems with dynamic route finding. At intersections on the competition course the cars had to identify for themselves which of the other vehicles had precedence. This was a very demanding test of the vehicle's ability to detect its environment and interpret traffic conditions. These are also technologies which have to be mastered by products integrating vehicle and safety technology, such as that currently being developed by Continental Automotive Systems under the name ContiGuard®.

One of the most difficult challenges facing the cars during the DARPA Challenge was having to find their own parking spots. Each vehicle had to use GPS data to find a specific parking bay within a large parking lot and then park in it. This part of the challenge also involved having to take account of other traffic on the site. "Finding a way around a free space is tricky," said Darms, "but we were impressed by the way the robot negotiated a route past both moving and stationary obstacles."

The biggest challenge for the engineers was "the extreme complexity of the technology, whose primary task was to function reliably": only for a matter of hours in the DARPA Challenge, but eventually it will be in permanent use in normal road traffic. "Technologies such as the intersection assistant and lane recognition will be available for ordinary passenger cars in the near future," says Dr. Karl-Thomas Neumann. He is convinced that the year and a half of intensive development work that Continental Automotive Systems has invested in the DARPA Grand Challenge will soon be put to use in production models.

The Continental group is a leading supplier of braking systems, chassis components, vehicle electronics, tires and technical elastomers to the automotive industry. In 2006, the company generated sales of €14.9 billion and currently employs a workforce of roughly 89,000 throughout the world.

As a leading global technology and systems engineering partner to the automotive industry, the Automotive Systems Division of Continental AG combines comprehensive know-how and uncompromising quality in the areas of active and passive driving safety, telematics, hands-free communication systems, drive systems and comfort. In 2006, the division generated sales of roughly €6 billion with a workforce of more than 30,000. Continental Automotive Systems develops and produces electronic and hydraulic brake, stability and suspension control systems, electronic air suspension systems, sensors, engine management and transmission control systems, hybrid drives, radiator fan modules, body and driver authorization systems and electronic devices for safety applications, and is a leading global producer of telematics and communications solutions for the automotive sector.

Source: Continental AG

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