How much computing and “cloud” power do you need operate an autonomous vehicle across the country? How about the equivalent of a 486DX/2 and, um, none at all?
In 1995, a student and a faculty member from Carnegie Mellon took a Delco-donated Trans Sport across the country without so much as GPS positioning.
We built the vehicle and software over about a four-month time frame for under $20,000. We had one computer, the equivalent of a 486DX2 (look that one up), a 640×480 color camera, a GPS receiver, and a fiber-optic gyro.
Yes, they had GPS, but because Selective Availability was still turned on back then, they only used GPS for speed, not position. Food and fuel for the trip was obtained through the sales of commemorative T-shirts. And, regrettably, not a single venture capitalist was harmed!
The most interesting part of the story is the note that many of the current players in self-driving cars trace their research and personnel to the pre-Cambrian explosion of self-driving car knowledge that happened at CMU in those days. So when the robots arrive, we’ll know who to blame, right?
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