Touch the truck: DARPA robot rolls at ESC

3/30/2006 9:27 PM EST

If you're at the next week's Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) in San Jose, you'll have a first hand look when the third place finisher, Carnegie Mellon University's H1ghlander (based on a Hummer H1), is parked outside the McEnery Convention Center. Also on hand to talk with will be CMU students and developers from Intel who supplied processing power to H1ghlander as well as to the winning Stanley robot vehicle, based on a VW Touareg, from a Stanford University team.

Perhaps these folk can tell you what they have planned next for robot vehicles, such as driving autonomously in traffic, and future impact on the cars we'll drive everyday. I for one look to such technology as helping to keep our aging population independently mobile as driving skills wane with age.