1. STANLEY
Billy Okal
Machine Learning Seminar 2012

2. Outline
• Task overview
• Robot and Team description
• Robot performance/results
• Challenges/critique

3. Task (in brief)
• Drive across a desert autonomously for ~140 miles
• Course (RDDF) given only 2 hours before race
• US $2 Million in prize money (for 2nd run in 2005)
• DARPA already mentioned that a 4WD pickup is
physically capable of finishing the race

4. Stanley Team
• Stanford University (headed by
Thrun)
• Volkswagen ERL
• Mohr Davidow Research
• Intel Research
• Others
Images: Sebastian Thrun’s presentation

5. Basic Vehicle Specs
• Volkswagen Touareg R5, 4WD
• Variable height air suspension, auto and electronics
locking differentials
• Added skid plates, front bumper
• Custom interface to throttle and brakes
• DC Motor Steering, Gears (drive, reverse, packing)
• CAN bus for communication
• Custom roof-rack for carrying sensors

6. Stanley (Nov, 04)
Images: Sebastian Thrun’s presentation

7. Sensors
• Five SICK Laser range finders different angles)
• Two 24 Hz Radar sensors (cover up to 200m)
• Color Camera for long range perception
• GPS positioning unit and compass
• IMU (Inertial measurement unit)

8. Computational Resources
• Six Pentium M computers (only 4 used in
actual race)
• Gigabit Ethernet switch
• Custom power with backup batteries
• Special air ducts from AC for cooling
• Total power requirement of 500 W
• Linux OS

9. Software Architecture
Images: Sebastian Thrun’s presentation

10. Terrain classification Planning
Vision
Learning
Images: Sebastian Thrun’s presentation

11. Key concepts
• Modular architecture
• Probabilistic Error Models
• Data driven parameter learning ( e.g for
terrain classification)
• UKF Position estimation
• ...

12. Beyond the Race
• Stanley now rests at a Museum
• Junior competed in 2007 Urban challenge
(didn’t win :( )
• Sebastian now leads Google’s driverless cars
campaign
• Modern “versions” of Stanley now are smaller,
less expensive.

13. Challenges
• Stanley cannot pass a moving big object
• Stanley had ‘no global planner’. Solved in
successors
• Only off-road use
• Only static race environments
• Critical time issues (500 msec delay caused
problems)

14. References
• S. Thrun et. al. ; ‘Stanley: The Robot that won
the DARPA Grand Challenge’, Journal of
Field Robotics 23(9), pp 661-692
• S. Thrun, M. Montemerlo and A. Aron;
‘Probabilistic Terrain Analysis for high speed
desert driving’, Robotics: Science and
Systems (RSS) 2006
• Stanley web page: http://
robots.stanford.edu/talks/stanley/