New York, Nov 5 (IANS) A robotic car built by university students won a $2 million US military-sponsored race in California, it was announced Sunday.
Backed by General Motors (GM), a team called Tartan Racing — formed by Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania — built the robotic car nicknamed ‘Boss’. It won Saturday by covering a distance of about 85 km in less then six hours on a simulated town created on a disused US Air Force base in Victorville, California.
The US military’s Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) sponsored the event, the online edition of BBC News reported.
The winner had to deal with 10 other robotic cars and shared the road with more than 30 professional human drivers to simulate busy traffic.
The race was designed to develop unmanned vehicles that could be used in battle situations by 2015.
Larry Burns, GM’s vice-president for research and development and strategic planning, said developing cars that drive themselves was a key objective.
“Imagine being able to talk on the phone, eat your breakfast, handle your emails, and leave the driving to the vehicle,” he added.
“That would be pretty phenomenal. It’s going to a big breakthrough. It’s technology that’s on the way to having cars that don’t crash.”