[ Thanks to Valter
Mazzola for this report. ]
Vehicle: Lancia Thema 2000
Low cost commercial black/white cameras,
f=6.0mm, 360 lines
Trinocular acquisition system (acquires three images with a
resolution of 786 x 576 pixels, 8bit/pixel, graylevel)
Odometer, Hall effect
PC Pentium MMX, 200MHz, 32 MegaBytes RAM, Linux
operating system
Analog/Digital I/O board
Led-based control panel: it includes 8 leds that show the relative
position of the vehicle with respect to the lane, 8 leds that
encode the selected functionality and a few driving parameters, and
6 push buttons that allow the user to tune the parameters and to
select the working functionality
On board 6” color monitor that lets the passengers control the
progression of the driving
Inverter generating 220V @ 50Hz: the power supply for the internal
equipments Electric engine on the steering column to allow the
vehicle driving autonomously Joystick for emergency situations: in
case of emergency the driver can grab the joystick and take the
control of the steering wheel Pedal for emergency situations: in
case of emergency the driver can press a pedal (near the clutch)
and take the control of the vehicle
Stereo speakers that are used by the system to give warnings to the
passengers
In the first week of June 1998, this vehicle was demonstrated to
the public and to the research community thanks to a 2000 km tour
throughout Italy during which the vehicle drove itself
autonomously.
Developed at the Department of Information Technology (Dipartimento
di Ingegneria dell’Informazione), University of Parma, PARMA,
Italy, under the frame of the Progetto Finalizzato Trasporti 2
(directed by Prof. L.Bianco), of the CNR, Italian National Research
Council.