Pentagon's robotic car race

Updated 12.55 Mon Nov 05 2007
Keywords: US Defence Department, car, robot, Pentagon

A robotic car has travelled without human help for 60 miles, winning a $2 million prize in a US Defence Department-sponsored race.

The Chevy is nicknamed "Boss" and was made by boffins at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

The department's goal is to make a third of its fleet robotic by 2015 - in a bid to keep US soldiers out of danger

It was declared the winner of the DARPA urban challenge after travelling on its own for six hours around a California ghost town.

The department's goal is to make a third of its fleet robotic by 2015 - in a bid to keep US soldiers out of danger.

The cars work via a combination of computer-based artificial intelligence, satnav, camera technology, radar and lasers.

Directions are then delivered to a system which drives the car.

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