Watch out America, Delphi will be autonomously driving a self-driving car from San Francisco to New York starting March 22 from the Golden Gate Bridge on the longest self-driving road trip, ever. There will be designated driver engineers to take over the driving if any thing goes wrong.
Delphi expects to learn how autonomous cars deal with multiple terrains and different weather conditions on the trip from San Francisco to New York which should take 8 days allowing the car to arrive in time for the New York Auto Show.
Although the news release did not sate the make and model of car being demonstrated, it is has been reported to be based on a Audi SQ5 and that Delphi has four autonomous vehicles.
At CES Delphi demonstrated its autonomous car with a suite of sensors and safety systems that included, radar, ADAS, multi-domain controller, and Vehicle-to-Vehicle communication. Advanced intelligent software provides Traffic Jam Assist, Automated Highway Pilot, Automated Urban Pilot and Automated Parking/Valet.
Three Lidar (laser radar) sensors and a vision camera are mounted on the inside the front windshield to see what is ahead of the car. Two additional Lidar systems are incorporated into the rear bumper.
“Virtually anything you would do on the highway, the car will be capable of doing as well,” said says Delphi CTO Jeff Owens. The Audi without the driver should drive at steady speed and safe distance from other cars as well as pass slower vehicles. If something like a deer gets into the way of the car, the car should brake or move into another lane if it is safe to do so.
The drivers for the trip will be six Delphi engineers:
- Serge Lambermont, the Technical Director for Automated Driving at Delphi.
- Matt Lewis is a Systems Engineer at Delphi Labs @ Silicon (DLSV) Valley in Mountain View.
- Walt Kosiak is with Delphi’s Electronics & Safety division and has more than 28 years of experience in automotive safety engineering.
- Jon Wieskamp is a Software and Electrical Engineer at Delphi Labs @ Silicon Valley in Mountain View, CA
- Tory Smith is a systems engineer at Delphi Labs @ Silicon Valley (DLSV) in Mountain View, California.
- Nathan Pendleton is a systems engineer with Delphi Labs @ Silicon Valley.
It looks like the drivers will be live Tweeting, you can follow Delphi Drive’s road trip @DelphiAuto #DelphiDrive or watch it online at the Delphi website.
This is not the first self-driving publicity stunt, for CES, Audi offered rides to journalists behind the wheel of a self-driving Audio for a freeway ride from San Francisco to Las Vegas.