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Stanford’s Junior Makes IDF Appearance

By Turbonius J. Monkey | September 19, 2007

I’m out here at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, and was thrilled to see Junior on display. It’s not exactly the kind of car you want to drive, but what an amazing piece of technology. Stanford’s Junior is their entry in the DARPA Urban Challenge. Stanley, Stanfords entry in the DARPA Offroad Challenge won quite handily. That contest seemed pretty simple by comparison. In the offroad challenge an autonomous vehicle had to successfully navigate miles of desert to a designated finish point. In the Urban Challenge the competing vehicles are still driverless, but they have the added responsibility of obeying traffic laws and avoiding pedestrians and regular road traffic.

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The first DARPA offroad challenge was a complete failure, no contestants completed the task. Junior is a Volkswagen Passat and, as shown in the pictures below, heavily modified with sensors and processing equipment.

It will certainly be interesting to see what transpires in the first DARPA Urban Challenge. In the meantime, be sure to enjoy the pretty pictures.