Flailing powers of Detroit, take note: cutting-edge cars seem to be continuously rolling out of the Stanford Solar Car Site.

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Junior: The Stanford Racing Team unveiled its latest model, a car nicknamed Junior, a robotic, unmanned vehicle that showcases innovation that could aid military technology. #gallery http://daily.stanford.edu/image/full/7734
Courtesy of Stanford Racing Team

Junior: The Stanford Racing Team unveiled its latest model, a car nicknamed Junior, a robotic, unmanned vehicle that showcases innovation that could aid military technology.

Two separate Stanford teams, which share workspace near the Medical School, have announced major unveilings to display the latest generation of Stanford cars built for ongoing projects.

A team assembled by the Artificial Intelligence Lab tested its new robot car, nicknamed Junior, last month in Mountain View as it prepared for the second round of Urban Challenge — a Pentagon-sponsored contest that will take place this fall. The Stanford Solar Car Project team is also set to show off its next-generation vehicle, Equinox, to an audience in the Science and Engineering Quad on July 14 before its race across the Australian Outback this September.

The Stanford Racing Team that built Junior — headed by Computer Science Prof. Sebastian Thrun and Senior Research Engineer Mike Montemerlo — was awarded $2 million by the Pentagon in 2005. The donation followed the team’s first-place finish in the Grand Challenge, a 130-mile race in the Nevada desert designed by the Department of Defense to spur innovation in technologies that are applicable to automated warfare.

That money went towards building Junior, a blue 2006 Volkswagen Passat station wagon with a large sensor mount on top. Junior’s steering, throttle and brakes were customized by a Volkswagen research lab in Palo Alto to be fully computer-controllable. The car pushes the limits of artificial intelligence engineering in its ability to navigate urban traffic.

Last month’s test near Shoreline Park was a measured success. The robot car, which topped out at 15 miles per hour, passed several tests, including stopping at an intersection and passing stationary vehicles. The trial was observed by the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and evaluated for entry in the Urban Challenge, which will be held on Nov. 3.

After the Grand Challenge entries proved that robot cars could handle the rocky desert environment, DARPA shifted its focus to an urban warfare setting. The Urban Challenge strives to showcase technology that could bring the military one step closer to its goal of deploying fleets of automated logistics vehicles onto the battlefield within the next 10 years.

The advantages of deploying unmanned vehicles are apparent to a U.S. military growing accustomed to suffering casualties in the desert and urban battlefields of its recent campaigns.

The Urban Challenge will raise the bar for Thrun and his colleagues.

“In the last Grand Challenge, it didn’t really matter whether an obstacle was a rock or a bush because either way you’d just drive around it,” Thrun said. “The current challenge is to move from just sensing the environment to understanding the environment.”

The Artificial Intelligence Lab wrote software that allows Junior to actively learn and improve its driving over time with mapping, perception and planning skills. The Intel dual core processor — stashed in the trunk — has four times the processing power of the car’s predecessor. The processor is required to compute the data collected by a number of external cameras, radars, GPS systems and a spinning laser range-finder mounted on the roof.

Meanwhile, the latest incarnation of the Stanford solar car, designated Equinox, has been completed and slated for exhibition next week.

The team builds a new car from scratch every two years to compete in the World Solar Challenge, a biennial race across the Australian continent. Solstice, Stanford’s last-generation entry, won the stock car class in July 2005 with only commercially available, off-the-shelf parts.

Unlike Solstice, Equinox sports some cutting-edge technology upgrades that translate into considerable performance boosts, said Alan Laursen ‘07, the solar team leader. The new parts include an expensive space-grade solar array and a digital electrical system.

The Challenge will be held the third week of October, and teams from across the globe will race from the tropical northern city of Darwin to the finish line in the parched desert of Adelaide, on the southern coast.

The historically successful Stanford team has invited the public to the vehicle’s unveiling next week, and expects many of its sponsors to be present. University sponsors include Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education John Bravman ‘79, The President’s Office and the School of Earth Sciences. Commercial firms Akeena Solar, Henkel, backpack supplier JanSport and high-performance electrical car startup Tesla Motors all made contributions.

Laursen strongly encouraged students to check out the car as well.

“After all, without the support of the student body’s special fees, we could not afford to operate,” Laursen said. “We have been building furiously to get the car ready and the unveiling gives us the opportunity to rest and take pride in our work.”