Communications of the ACM
Introducing Marty, Stanford's Self-Driving, Electric, Drifting Delorean
Engineers at Stanford University have built an autonomous, electrical DeLorean.
Credit: David Bush
A team of Stanford University engineers led by professor Chris Gerdes have built an autonomous, drifting DeLorean powered by electricity to research the physical limits of self-driving systems.
The Multiple Actuator Research Test bed for Yaw control (MARTY) embodies the Dynamic Design Lab's mission to determine how to leverage all of a car's capabilities to create autonomous driving systems that will control the vehicle more safely in all situations.
"We want to design automated vehicles that can take any action necessary to avoid an accident," Gerdes says. "The laws of physics will limit what the car can do, but we think the software should be capable of any possible maneuver within those limits."
Stanford graduate student Jonathan Goh says the car will eventually be taught to race around a track using a drifting method to negotiate tight turns around obstacles when needed.
MARTY already can self-lock into a continuous circular doughnut at a large drift angle.
The car is a joint project between Gerdes' lab, the Revs Program at Stanford, and Renovo Motors. Renovo made available a new platform that delivers 4,000 pound-feet from on-motor gearboxes to the rear wheels in a fraction of a second, enabling precise control of the forces required to drift.
From Stanford Report
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