VisLab’s magnificent autonomous journey

In an experiment reminiscent of DARPA’s Grand and Urban Challenges of 2005 and 2007 respectively, a group of Italian engineers is currently readying themselves for an altogether more arduous challenge – an 8,000 mile journey from Italy to China, without anyone behind the wheel… well, almost. “Nobody has ever tried anything like this before,” states Alberto Broggi, Vislab director. “It’s the first time in history that vehicles without drivers and without using oil-based propulsion will travel on an inter-continental route. If everything goes according to plan, this will be a huge milestone in the history of mobility and robotics.”

VisLab is a spin-off company from the University of Parma and is involved in basic and applied research, developing machine vision algorithms and intelligent systems for different applications, primarily for the automotive field. This three-month VisLab Intercontintental Autonomous Challenge (VIAC) will see a convoy of sensor-rich vans pass through mountain ranges, heavily congested city areas (in Moscow), as well as take on the rigors of Siberia’s harsh climate before ending up on the bustling freeways of Shanghai in October.

Each of the two vans will carry two technicians, ready to step in should anything go awry, but to all intents and purposes the electric-powered vehicles will be driving autonomously at various stages. “The convoy is led by a vehicle in which operators take control every time a decision has to be taken, which is known as the ‘leader’ vehicle,” Broggi continues. “The leader vehicle broadcasts its GPS position via radio. The second vehicle, the ‘follower’, receives the leader’s GPS position, allowing it to follow the van in front via various GPS waypoints, refining its position via local sensing.” Along the route, there will be scheduled demonstrations during which passengers can sit in the vans and experience the driverless challenge up close. “We are committed to a great show but safety plays a basic role,” Broggi adds.

A solar panel is used to power the autonomous driving system, so all cameras, lasers, computing power and actuators are powered by green energy – sustainable mobility in action. Where there are no electric charging points available to power the vehicle along the route, generators will be used to top up the power. All of the data from every sensor on the vehicle will be downloaded, allowing the engineers to time and time again the very same route, enabling them to fine-tune algorithms as well as develop new ones. “This will be a unique database that will include almost every situation related to traffic density, weather, road morphology, and road infrastructures,” Broggi says. “By the end of the challenge, we estimate that we will have over 100TB of unique data!”

So assuming VIAC will be a success, what’s next for this team of Italian experts? “The next challenge would be to let the vehicle run alone for the whole trip and get it back after three months, something along the lines of our achievement with TerraMax in the 2005 Grand Challenge, which went out into the Mojave Desert and came back after 30 hours of autonomous driving.

“We will face many challenges, from the most trivial aspects such as data recording to the more complex trajectory planning when driving in very congested areas,” Broggi concludes. “Even the smallest aspects can become a real issue when the size of the problem gets so large – 13,000km in three months on real roads is a test that has never been tried and documented. Anything can go wrong, so therefore it’s of terrific importance in the research stage. Every little detail has to be planned carefully.”

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22 July 2010