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darpa grand challenge
[Jalopnik's desert stringer Curtis Walker is following the DARPA Grand Challenge, an annual race of autonomous ground vehicles, with a serious case of the techies. We'll have his reports today on the National Qualifying Event semifinals, like this one, as soon as he can type them into his digital audio-visual receipt and transmission unit. - ed.] Among the numerous newcomers to this year's DARPA competition, Massachusetts Institute of Technology seems poised to win the imaginary award for most gizmotastically outfitted. Armed with a cool million in seed money for development, team MIT went all out with the sensors and CPUs. All told, they've got 11 Sick Lidars (Light Detection and Ranging) units, five optical cameras, 15 Delphi long-range radars, GPS and a 40-core supercomputer to run them. All this power comes at a price in the form of electricity required and heat generated. To address this, they installed a 6kW generator and a 2kW roof mounted AC unit. Perhaps even more impressive is that the 100,000 or so lines of code running on the system were all written for this event. [Next: Team Lux, and gallery.]
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DARPA Grand Challenge: A Battle of Wits
[Jalopnik's desert stringer Curtis Walker is following the DARPA Grand Challenge, an annual race of autonomous ground vehicles, with a serious case of the techies. We'll have his reports today on the National Qualifying Event semifinals, like this one, as soon as he can type them into his digital audio-visual receipt and transmission unit. - ed.] Among the numerous newcomers to this year's DARPA competition, Massachusetts Institute of Technology seems poised to win the imaginary award for most gizmotastically outfitted. Armed with a cool million in seed money for development, team MIT went all out with the sensors and CPUs. All told, they've got 11 Sick Lidars (Light Detection and Ranging) units, five optical cameras, 15 Delphi long-range radars, GPS and a 40-core supercomputer to run them. All this power comes at a price in the form of electricity required and heat generated. To address this, they installed a 6kW generator and a 2kW roof mounted AC unit. Perhaps even more impressive is that the 100,000 or so lines of code running on the system were all written for this event. [Next: Team Lux, and gallery.]
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science at work
MIT Developing Spark Free Engines
Working to improve the efficiency of gasoline engines, researchers at MIT have demonstrated technology that could enable ordinary spark-ignition engines to shift into a spark-free mode. Crucially, the Homogenous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) creates simultaneous ignition throughout the combustion chamber, resulting in decreased soot and nitrogen pollution. A graphic illustrating how the combustion works follows the jump. More »
wir fahren mit dem boobs
German Bus Driver Can't Handle Cleavage
Score one for precise, youthful German cleavage in the game to drive men to distraction. Apparently, a twenty-year-old German sales clerk had cleavage so amazingly wonderful that it the driver to stop a Lindau bus and demand that she move, shouting "Your cleavage is distracting me every time I look into my mirror and I can't concentrate on the traffic. If you don't sit somewhere else, I'm going to have to throw you off the bus." Ah, the joys of surly public transit officials. [Reuters]
concept cars
Living for the City: MIT's Stackable Urban Car
Futurists have been hot on the robotic urban pod model of transportation since the last flight of Laika, the dog cosmonaut. But with technology catching up with ideas, researchers are starting to come up with tangible prototypes. Take, for example, this folding-car concept from MIT Media Lab. Less a car than a CPU with a windshield, the City Car is propelled by in-wheel electric motors and can achieve omnidirectional mobility via swiveling wheels. It can also fold to take up a fraction of its footprint, and can be stacked like grocery carts at designated parking lots that would double as charging stations, according to The Boston Globe. No word on whether these would encompass some kind of quasi-public car-sharing system, or if they'd be privately owned. All we know is that having one's car stuck under a mountain of stacked pods at the supermarket would make being trapped by a double-parked Tahoe seem like the better choice. More »
news
'Plasma-Turbo' Is Certainly One of the Best Hyphenates Ever: Wacky, Futuristic Stuff From MIT
Remember back when everything used to be "atomic?" Then somehow "nuclear" became the preferred phrase? But it seems to us, something as important of the fission and/or fusion of the atom should be a simple, agreed-upon pronunciation, so figures as important as presidents don't look like assholes when talking about things that could be either a huge boon or a giant bust. Meanwhile, cats at MIT are working on all sorts of rad, future propulsion and energy options, including an ethanol-fired plasma-spun turbocharger. (Have the geeks in Mass been reading vintage Turbonique catalogs in their spare time?) "Plasma-turbo" totally sounds straight out of the Thundercats, btw. Didn't Panthro have one? More »
news
A Flying Transformer-Car-Jet! We're Waiting For The El Camino-ization
Terrafugia's moved up the work on this George Jetson play-toy. Although it may look like it's totally coming straight from a Spacely Sprockets airstrip, it's not. This MIT-designed flying car is called the Transition, and they're gonna try building a prototype in the next two years for a mere $150,000 a unit. Also, it's meant to undergo a metamorphosis on the runway, with the tail folding down, the wings flattening and — excuse me — we've been told the Transition's not a "flying car" but rather a "driving jet." Our mistake. Well, since they don't want to call it a car then I guess we won't cover it. Fuck 'em — we didn't like it anyway. More »
concept cars
Tech Start-up Planning Flying Car
A technology start-up company founded by MIT graduate students could have a flying car to market as early 2009, according to CNet. The company, Terrafugia, is working up a SUV-cum-aircraft that will be able to carry two people and luggage on 100- to 500-mile jumps using a tank of premium unleaded gas. A working prototype is expected by 2008, but the company will display a scale model of its Transition Personal Air Vehicle at the EAA AirVenture Conference in Oshkosh, Wisconsin this July. Book your flight now, Oshkosh is murder in the summer. [Thanks to Chris and Jeff for the tip.] More »
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