Mobile Robots and Smart Cars

For many years, researchers building mobile robots have concentrated on applications involving hazardous environments. Our robots at Carnegie Mellon University have been designed for military reconnaissance, coal mining, aerial rescue, volcano exploration, and other such tasks.In the past few years, we have realized that one of the most hazardous environments is the automobile expressway: every year 40,000 people are killed on US highways alone. Accordingly, we have begun a large effort to use our robotics technologies to improve highway safety. In our Collision Countermeasures project, we are using computer vision to watch as a person drives, and wake up the driver if they are falling asleep and drifting off the road. In the Automated Highway project, we are building completely automated vehicles that will provide hands-off, feet-off, safe and efficient automobile travel.This talk will describe some of the robots we have built, some of the underlying technology, and some of the larger social and economic issues involved with building automated vehicles and highways.