Driverless Car Sets Mileage Record on Mexico Trip Mike Wolterbeek - University of Nevada
go to original October 22, 2015

Raul Rojas travels 1,500 miles in autonomous car in Mexico (University of Nevada, Reno Communications Office)

Admit it, you've tried driving, at least for a very short time, with no hands on the steering wheel. Professor Raul Rojas of the University of Nevada, Reno just drove 1,500 miles without hands - from the U.S. border at Nogales to Mexico City - in his autonomous car. It is the longest-ever autonomous drive in Mexico.

With several terabytes of data describing the highways, and with specialized software, the onboard computer guided the car on city streets and highways through the Sonoran Desert, along the west coast of Mexico, up to Guadalajara and then to its final destination of the National Polytechnic University, Instituto Politecnico Nacional, in Mexico City.

"This is a new challenge, a next step to learn and develop systems, to learn ways to solve new problems for driverless cars," Rojas, who holds a joint appointment with Freie University of Berlin in Germany, said. "Most of the trip was highway, but there are many different issues such as construction sites, urban areas in between, potholes and so on. In the case of the Mexican highway, there is construction work and potholes in around 5 percent of the segments."

This trip along Mexico's Highway 15 sets, by far, a new personal best for Rojas, as his autonomous car, a 2010 Volkswagen Passat Variant, had already driven 190 miles round trip between Berlin and Leipzig, Germany. The car is equipped with a highly precise GPS system and specialized equipment that allows it to follow a pre-set route, and then drive on its own with other systems controlling speed, direction and braking. A roof antenna receives GPS satellite signals from which a computer calculates the position of the car on the earth's surface.

Read the rest at University of Nevada

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