Finally, I've been waiting for this forever. It can't come soon enough for me.
German car giant Volkswagen has turned fiction into reality by unveiling a fully automatic car which really can drive itself - and at speeds of up to 150mph.
It can weave with tyres screeching around tricky bends and chicanes, and through tightly coned off tracks - without any help or intervention from a human.
[...]
The GTi has electronic 'eyes' that use radar and laser sensors in the grille to 'read' the road and send the details back to its computer brain. A sat-nav system tracks its exact position with pin-point precision to within an inch.
The car can then work out the twists and turns it has to negotiate - before setting off at break-neck speed through a laid out course on a test track.
On a race circuit, it drove itself faster and more precisely than the VW engineers could manage - and can accelerate independently up to its top speed of 150mph.
To prove it is no trick, guests were invited to design for themselves a variety of different courses - using road cones - and then watch the car fly around them on its own at a test track near their world headquarters in Wolfsburg in northern Germany.
[...]
'The computer calculates where and at what speed the GTi has clearance between the cones. The GPS satellite enables navigation to within less than an inch.'
Find this story at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=393401&in_page_id=1770
©2006 Associated New Media
