Oxford University Designs Robot Car

Some of the British geeks at Oxford University have developed a new robotic car. It sounds a lot like the robotic cars that Google has been testing around the country for a while now. The Oxford vehicle is an off-road style truck that I thought was a Land Rover, but it an off-roader called the Wildcat. The car from Oxford is called the robotic Wildcat.

It uses a glut of sensors with a computer in the trunk to interpret the data the sensors collect. The interesting thing is that the car is able to see what it around it using cameras and then drive without any human intervention just by being aware of surrounds. Typically, GPS is used to guide autonomous cars and vehicles, but that introduces a margin of error.

The Wildcat with its sensor suite can drive to a destination using the cameras to see what is around to avoid traffic and other obstacles. The Wildcat has less sensors that the Google cars and relys on 3D maps that are running onboard. The idea is that robotic vehicles such as this would help reduce congestion by avoiding slowdowns.

[via BBC]