'Ninja Car' autonomous technology has potential for space exploration
Self-driving cars may be in their infancy, but they鈥檙e already better drivers than humans in many ways, says Chris Heckman, an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science. They don鈥檛 become overconfident, they are always focused and they鈥檙e much better at performing driving maneuvers consistently. 听
But he also thinks they haven鈥檛 truly been put to the test.
鈥淚f you look at many autonomous vehicle launches like Uber or Google, it鈥檚 generally the best driving conditions you can imagine,鈥� Heckman says.
They鈥檙e always driving on the road, and always on a sunny day.鈥�
So instead of cruising around Mountain View, California, he imagines a test drive during ski season on baby直播app鈥檚 Interstate 70, with bumper-to-bumper traffic on snow-packed, icy roads.
Heckman鈥檚 work in robotics is focused on creating autonomous vehicles that can sense every aspect of their environment鈥攆rom obstacles in their path to the terrain under their tires鈥攁nd make decisions accordingly.
鈥淚t鈥檚 like giving a car an imagination,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not terribly different than how we would do it. We change the way we drive when we鈥檙e on ice, but today鈥檚 autonomous vehicles aren鈥檛 quite there yet.鈥�
He explained that current self-driving car technology relies on pre-built maps and 3D models of roads, as well as on the ability of the car to communicate with a server that鈥檚 helping to run its algorithms.听
But the 鈥淣inja Car鈥� platforms he and his students are building in his Autonomous Robotics and Perception Group contain everything they need to make decisions. They鈥檙e equipped with multiple types of sensors, including cameras mounted on the front and devices in the axles helping to analyze the terrain. The cars also carry the computers they need to run the algorithms that guide their decision-making.
All that integrated equipment makes the project highly interdisciplinary. Also involved in the project are computer science researchers Dirk Grunwald, Lijun Chen and Sriram Sankaranarayanan, as well as electrical engineering professor John Hauser.
The graduate students working in Heckman鈥檚 lab also have very diverse backgrounds. His six PhD students all come from different engineering and scientific disciplines, while his four master鈥檚 students are all electrical engineers.
Heckman says that while they鈥檙e focused on Earth-bound activities right now, the technology holds potential for space exploration as well. The Mars rovers were able to be only partially autonomous because Mars is close enough to allow communication with Earth. But exploration of other bodies鈥攍ike Jupiter鈥檚 moon Europa鈥攚on鈥檛 be as easy.
鈥淥n Europa, you need full autonomy because we鈥檙e not going to send a human in our lifetime,鈥� Heckman says.
