Single-Track Autonomous Ground Vehicles: Opening a New Degree of Freedom in Mobility

The combination of exceptional terrain handling characteristics, narrow width, outstanding payload to vehicle weight ratio and low cost have made single track vehicles the second most common means of transportation for humans, second only to walking. These advantages, which Unmanned Ground Vehicles currently lack, do not come from the human rider but from the added degree of freedom bicycles and motorcycles have over cars. This talk will provide an overview of the added challenges and solutions, advantages, new applications and markets, and future use of single track UGV technology, as well as a brief overview of the DARPA’s Grand Challenge, an autonomous vehicle race from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

DARPA Grand Challenge

Recently, Congress passed a mandate requiring 1/3 of all ground armed forces to be autonomous by 2015. To stimulate the development of UGV technology needed to fulfill this mandate DARPA organized an event called the “Grand Challenge” in which vehicles would need to autonomously navigate from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

Presenter(s)

Anthony Levandowski is the founder of Robotic Infantry, Inc. and the team leader of the Berkeley-based "blue team" which created the world's first autonomous motorcycle "ghostrider" to compete in the 2004 DARPA Grand Challenge. Anthony earned his BS in 2002 and MS degree in 2003 in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from the University of California, Berkeley. He also received a Management of Technology certificate from the Haas Business School in 2003. Anthony served as president of the Alpha Pi Mu Industrial Engineering Honors Society and is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honors societies.