By designing a vehicle that car can drive itself, it may look like the engineers at Volkswagen are going off on some strange but entertaining tangent.
In truth, the Touareg SUV that went for a drive by itself around an off-road course at Motopark Oschersleben near the firm's Wolfsburg headquarters is actually the next stage in an ongoing safety process.
It was also an important step in getting the "autonomous" unit ready for the Grand Challenge 2005 on October 8, 2005, which is a unique race for driverless vehicles.
The decision to invest all that time and money helping a gaggle of high-tech sensors to copy a human's movements in various specific situations is seen to be part of a process that's already well developed in various cars and trucks.
Specifically, it is part of the movement to create "driver-assistance systems" for vehicles that can respond better than humans in certain situations, or at least help humans cope with certain situations.
VW correctly points out that there are already a bunch of these technologies on the market that are "making our roads safer."
The most famous and useful of which is certainly stability control, which goes by many marketing names. Stability control works because it can do something that no driver in any production vehicle can do -- work one brake at a time in order to bring a sliding vehicle under control. It doesn't always stop a car from going out of control because the laws of physics will always apply, but stability control has saved innumerable vehicles from skidding off the road and into trouble.
After that came automatic cruise control, which keeps an eye on the car, truck, bus or whatever ahead of the vehicle it's in and slows it down if it gets too close. This is primarily a warning system right now, but with time the car companies will hone this technology so it will stop a vehicle with no input from the driver and that will cut down on a lot of rear-end collisions. There's no real technological reason they couldn't do this now, as a matter of fact; it's more a political issue of not wanting to offend consumers who want to feel they're in control.
VW says that all of the latest available technology for recognition and analysis of a car's environment has been used in the Grand Challenge Touareg. Says Matthias Rabe, head of company research at Volkswagen AG, "It has been established that, when combined, these driver assistance systems autonomously recognize the course and obstacles and steer the vehicle."
The derivatives of the systems demonstrated in Oschersleben will, in future, contribute to improving comfort and safety in cars, Rabe believes. "The systems need to be made as good as aware drivers themselves. In the next step, the systems will have to be made even better than the driver -- by looking around the next corner and assessing the situation correctly."
Stanley Touareg, as he's affectionately called at VW, will be more or less the same as the production version when he takes part in the contest this October. Only a full-length underbody protection plate and reinforced shock absorbers will be added.
Stanley will have a lot more electronic equipment than the average Touareg, says Rabe, including "countless sensors as well as a combination of four laser detectors to collect the data that allows the driverless car to find its way safely and quickly."
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| Volkswagen Touareg off-road (photo: VAG) |
It was also an important step in getting the "autonomous" unit ready for the Grand Challenge 2005 on October 8, 2005, which is a unique race for driverless vehicles.
The decision to invest all that time and money helping a gaggle of high-tech sensors to copy a human's movements in various specific situations is seen to be part of a process that's already well developed in various cars and trucks.
Specifically, it is part of the movement to create "driver-assistance systems" for vehicles that can respond better than humans in certain situations, or at least help humans cope with certain situations.
VW correctly points out that there are already a bunch of these technologies on the market that are "making our roads safer."
The most famous and useful of which is certainly stability control, which goes by many marketing names. Stability control works because it can do something that no driver in any production vehicle can do -- work one brake at a time in order to bring a sliding vehicle under control. It doesn't always stop a car from going out of control because the laws of physics will always apply, but stability control has saved innumerable vehicles from skidding off the road and into trouble.
After that came automatic cruise control, which keeps an eye on the car, truck, bus or whatever ahead of the vehicle it's in and slows it down if it gets too close. This is primarily a warning system right now, but with time the car companies will hone this technology so it will stop a vehicle with no input from the driver and that will cut down on a lot of rear-end collisions. There's no real technological reason they couldn't do this now, as a matter of fact; it's more a political issue of not wanting to offend consumers who want to feel they're in control.
 |
| Volkswagen Touareg off-road (photo: VAG) |
The derivatives of the systems demonstrated in Oschersleben will, in future, contribute to improving comfort and safety in cars, Rabe believes. "The systems need to be made as good as aware drivers themselves. In the next step, the systems will have to be made even better than the driver -- by looking around the next corner and assessing the situation correctly."
Stanley Touareg, as he's affectionately called at VW, will be more or less the same as the production version when he takes part in the contest this October. Only a full-length underbody protection plate and reinforced shock absorbers will be added.
Stanley will have a lot more electronic equipment than the average Touareg, says Rabe, including "countless sensors as well as a combination of four laser detectors to collect the data that allows the driverless car to find its way safely and quickly."