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Team #20 Intelligent Vehicle Systems
August 15, 2007

It is who you know.  My mother, Anne Grayson, a long time supporter was here yesterday to visit AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL MAGIC's workshop.   She was here along with my brother Roger - an aeronautical engineer and senior pilot with American Airlines, his wife Denise, their son Alex - a Linux computer wizard, and  their daughter Laura - Flight Attendant.  They were impressed with the progress we have made and Anne Grayson will be buying the Texas Bumpers, like the on a Kenworth 900, that we will be outfitting automatic guided vehicle AGV WENDY DARLING with in the next week.  The Texas bumpers are 4" deep, 18" tall, and 8' wide uncoated steel so we can modify them easily with a torch and welding machine.  These are designed to be mounted 12" off the ground so that they will match up with most car bumper heights and prevent cars from stuffing themselves under our vehicle.  As we get closer to the DARPA Urban Challenge race day, more of the teams are starting to address the bumper issues.  What is a little bit different about ours is that they go all the way around the vhicle as is the requirement in Europe.  The European Union has adopted a resolution to cut traffic fatalities in half by 2010 and side bumpers on trucks save lives.

Another important decision has been made.  AGV WENDY DARLING will be changing color from OD green to Desert Tan a little bit at a time in the next few weeks.  This should give the vehicle an updated and improved appearance.  The white primer we have been painting the underside of the the vehicle is brightening up that work area.   Stringing wires and tubing is much easier now that there is more light. 

Team #20 on my list is Intelligent Vehicle Systems.  Their vehicle is called XAV-250 Truck.  They got one of the million dollar development grants and were selected to be one of the 36 semi-finalists.  IVS is made up of members from Delphi, Ford and Honeywell which sounds like an excellent combination of resources for this race.  Jim McBride is their DARPA Team Lead & focal point for DARPA communications. Steve Young is their communications manager. 

Over the past 6 years I have talked with representatives at each of the three companies about participating in the DARPA series of races and which of the components that they make would be good to put on a Challenge vehicle.  

Delphi has a lot to offer as a member of the team.  They make all the gizmos and gadgets that car makers offer as options.   They already make most of the things that could be used to make a car ready for the DARPA series - you just need to put it all on one vehicle.  Computer controlled brakes, navigation, stability control system, ABS, electric power steering are all useful in puting together a driverless car.  That is why I worked so hard to recruit them to be on the AIM racing team. 

Ford makes the rest of the car.  They are also Lincoln, Mercury, Mazda, Volvo, Jaguar, and Land Rover.  Volvo has a history of leading in vehicle safety so I thought they would be interested in the safety aspect of the driverless vehicle systems.  Jaguar has a history of racing so I thought they would be interested in the competitive aspect of the DARPA series.  And of course Land Rover has a long history of puting Land Rovers to every use you can think of.  Helping prepare a Land Rover for the race would be in keeping with their past history.  The people I talked to in each of these divisions were very interested in hearing about the DARPA race.  I would be developing technology critical to the continued success of any car company.   I contacted Ford and its various divisions to try to drum up interest in the race and support for my team because I had worked in Ford's Steamship Division (now closed).   I tried to interest Bill Ford and the Ford Research and Advanced Engineering Department in being part of my team.  You may have seen Bill's response which was to change his ads on TV to say "Ford is working on advanced safety systems and every life saved is worth it" which is the catagory that driverless systems are part of and paraphrases AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL MAGIC's slogan "Racing to build technolgy that saves soldier's lives".  After much continued discussion they eventually decided to start a team of their own.  I was disapointed that they wouldn't be helping my team but glad that they had seen my point and joined the race.  As people working closely with me here at AIM HQ realize this has been a common theme.  My work in trying to recruit sponsors and team members has gone a long way toward promoting the DARPA race, informing people about it, talking them into becoming sponsors of other teams or starting a team of their own. 

Honeywell makes guidance systems for missiles and autopilots for aircraft. While Delphi has automotive navigation and GPS products available, when the NAV system is driving the vehicle it has to continue doing so when the GPS signal is lost.  The easiest way is to acomplish this is have the inertial navigation sytem drive the vehicle and use the GPS signal to constantly update the INS.  That way when the GPS signal is lost, it is only a few updates that are missed, no disruption to the NAV opertion such as switching over from one to another might be. 

Posted by on August 15, 2007 | Comments (0)