This coming weekend sees the DARPA Grand Challenge, a gruelling quest in which autonomous vehicles must traverse desert and mountains in Nevada. Last year, no vehicle made it across the entire course, so the $1million prize was left unclaimed. This year, however, it's looking like a few of the entries might just make it.
Intel are keen to show off its participation in the event. Two of the vehicles participating are sponsored by Intel. DARPA sponsors the event with the aim of encouraging the development of new technology for remote combat vehicles, but Intel sees a future in their technology in everyday vehicles too.
So, where your combat vehicle might navigate rubble and target the bad guys, your road-going vehicle would alert you to, or otherwise help you avoid crashes and other hazards, or even 'take the wheel' if you're stuck in traffic and would rather put your feet up. Intel wants to see their Pentium M powering cars, helping them to see and improve the driving experience.
It's no easy feat giving a car eyes; it's not just a case of slapping cameras on the chassis. There's a tremendous amount of visual data that needs processing, to allow the identification of lanes, vehicles, distances and potential hazards. Face detection, road segmentation and a variety of other technologies are being developed that could, and probably will one day find their way into our vehicles.
Keep an eye on the grand challenge this weekend and watch out for the Intel sponsored vehicles; with any luck the technology on them will get them through the course and we'll see similar swanky stuff on cars of the future!
