On Friday, February 23rd, PAVE hosted a dedication ceremony to honor the recent donation of the 2005 Ford Escape Hybrid as our competition vehicle, as well as the completion of our new garage workspace. Attendees included students, faculty, staff, administration, sponsors and representatives from the local and regional media. A summary of the dedication ceremony is available though an internal press release.

On Saturday, February 24th, PAVE was a part of Princeton University’s Alumni Day program, with a presentation entitled “There’s Nobody Driving This Truck! Creation of an Autonomous Urban Vehicle: An Example of Extra-curricular Learning through Team-based Independent Research.” After the talk, attendees were invited outside for live tours and a demonstration of our new vehicle’s drive-by-wire capabilities.

PAVE would like extend a welcome and thanks to our recently acquired sponsors. These companies are now part of the growing PAVE family that shares the experience of competing in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. The ShockTech corporation in Monsey, NY has donated shock-isolating mounts for our rack-mounted computers. Our neighbors in Princeton Junction, NJ, Posital have helped us acquire a high-resolution optical encoder for steering feedback. Finally, the fine folks at BookSwim have agreed to join our Business team as consultants.

Recently, several members of PAVE were invited out to Pasadena, CA to visit the Urban Challenge team at Caltech. During the visit we exchanged and compared our ideas and approaches for the upcoming Challenge. This was a very positive experience for PAVE, and we would like to extend our greatest thanks to Team Caltech. We wish you all the best in the competition!

Since receiving our new competition vehicle several weeks ago, PAVE has made substantial progress in modifying it for autonomous operation. Utilizing many of the existing drive-by-wire systems in our 2005 Ford Escape Hybrid, we have so far been able to individually control the brakes, throttle and steering systems. Stay tuned for more progress reports, as we aim to have these systems integrated within a few weeks.

In addition, we have recently received some publicity. Check out this front page story from The Daily Princetonian, as well as a recent blog entry in E-Quad News.