Mar 25, 2008 8:18 pm US/Eastern
Driverless Car Just Beginning For Technology Here
Reporting
Jim Lokay
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ―
Some local groups are helping to push Pittsburgh to technology's cutting edge.
Just a few months ago, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University won a $2 million prize for creating a driver-less car.
Now, there's hope it might be the start of something big.
Time stands still outside of a locomotive roundhouse at the old LTV works… but inside, sits Carnegie Mellon's robot city complex.
It's home to Carnegie Mellon University's robotics operation, and a key element of Pittsburgh's technological rebirth.
"The region is great," said Dr. Chris Urmson, Robot City's technical director. "You have a lot of facilities like this where we can go and test vehicles and have a lot of smart people to work on them."
Chris Urmson came to town a decade ago from Winnipeg.
He's part of the team that created "BOSS" a self-guided vehicle that won a defense department prize for innovation in November.
"We built it to compete in the DARPA Urban Road Challenge," said Urmson. "We had to drive a car to compete in a city-like environment to interact with traffic and make safe driving decisions."
From CMU's robotic exploits to advances in regenerative medicine at the University of Pittsburgh's McGowan Institute, it is further proof high-tech and bio-tech are big business.
"When you look at the future of Pittsburgh and the future of our economy, it's really contingent on the growth of our universities and hospitals and institutions," said Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl. "So, we're looking at ways to locate space and opportunities for groups like this and institutions to continue this fine work and certainly to expand it as well."
In the case of BOSS, this could be used for some decidedly mundane tasks like having the ability for a car to valet park itself.
But the best part about the city?
For lunar rover researchers, it's all about location.
"Where else do you have a facility that can set up a whole lunar landscape complete with craters and difficult obstacles," said Robot Researcher David Kohanbash.
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