Migrating Autonomous Vehicle Capabilities from the Laboratory to the Highway.

In late 2006, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI®) established a $5 million internal research and development program, called the Southwest Safe Transport Initiative (SSTI), to improve safety in urban traffic environments. SSTI is charged with developing new sensor, computing, and mobile technologies to augment vehicle platforms and provide computer vehicle control capabilities. Through SSTI, the Institute is fusing the latest technology from multiple industries to meet the challenges associated with computer control of cars, trucks, and tractors. Through the fusion of technologies and design methodologies from multiple industries such as aerospace electronics, intelligent transportation systems, cognitive multi-agent systems, machine vision, engineering dynamics, hardware/software-in-the-loop simulation, large-scale multi-function robotics, and safety and reliability systems, SwRI is developing a full-scale intelligent vehicle platform to be usedfor advanced engineering driver assist applications development. At the 2008 World Congress in New York City, the SSTI vehicle was demonstrated along 11th Avenue along with the intelligent vehicle from Stanford University. Along with these types of demonstrations and the successes of the DARPA Grand and Urban Challenges, it is time to evaluate how these advanced technologies can be deployed to production vehicles to improve vehicle safety.This paper discusses how these advanced technologies can be deployed in vehicles using low cost computers and sensors.