Designed to be deployed in urban reconnaissance and natural disaster relief missions, the prototype vehicle can sense and navigate on unknown and challenging terrains, and its critical functions and autonomy algorithms can plan missions, gather information, and update maps, according to Clemson.
On Memorial Day, just prior to the running of the legendary Indy 500 race, a new speedway star came out to shine. A driverless racecar, no less, aiming for track speeds above 120 mph with no human hands on the wheel. The Dallara Lite has been kitted out with sensors and a drive-by-wire system, one identical car for each of the Indy Autonomous Challenge teams. The most advanced autonomous racecar in the world will compete at the historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway on October 23.
Hexagon’s Autonomy & Positioning division, in the form of NovAtel and AutonomouStuff, besides donating the GNSS receivers for all the cars, acted as subject matter expert for Clemson University’s Deep Orange team of highly skilled graduate students and professors. Clemson is not competing in the race but the Deep Orange team assembled the “over-spec’d” sensor kit for the prototype Dallara reference vehicle. AutonomouStuff is now replicating the process for 20 identical models.