Category Archives: PAVE Team

News, PAVE Team

Moving On

For the past few months we’ve been analyzing our performance as a team during the duration of the Urban Challenge. Through our participation in the Urban Challenge, we’ve learned valuable lessons in teamwork and leadership. Those lessons will be incorporated into our current research efforts.

During the fall of 2007, we recruited many new members who are now active participants on PAVE. They will be working with us as we continue our research efforts in autonomous vehicles. While the primary goal of PAVE will be to continue our work on Prospect 12, our Urban Challenge vehicle, a group of PAVE members will be competing in the 2008 Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition, to be held between May 30 – June 2.

Events, News, Urban Challenge

Blogging from the Urban Challenge

We’ve arrived at the site of the National Qualification Event in Victorville, CA. We look forward to opening ceremonies tomorrow. Meanwhile, we’re unpacking our vehicle, which has arrived safely after being trucked across the country. We’ll be posting updates from our Urban Challenge Blog. Once the NQE gets underway, DARPA will be hosting a webcast from the official DARPA Urban Challenge website.

News, Urban Challenge

Site Visit – Summary

We had our site visit on this past Monday afternoon, July 9th, from 2 to 6 pm. Unfortunately, we did not perform as well as we expected. Various problems that had not been encountered during previous testing plagued us throughout the afternoon. As the hours wore on and the 90+ degree heat wore us out, we continued to battle these unforseen issues.

At the end of the day, we were able to complete about 50% of each of the runs. We successfully demonstrated most of the required behaviors, including staying in our lane, stopping at a stop line, passing a parked car and obeying mission parameters. For the times when our system worked properly, our performance was very consistent.

We will find out the final results of our site visit evaluation, which is also based on our Technical Paper, on August 10.

All of the Princeton University Urban Challenge Team members would like to extend hearty thanks to all of the family, friends and supporters who showed up to cheer us along at this big milestone in our project. In addition, PAVE gratefully acknowledges the FMC corporation for allowing us to use their facilities for our site visit.

Also, many thanks to the various media crews that have covered our conitnuing efforts in the Urban Challenge. Recent additions to our publicity page include Kevin Coughlin’s article in the Newark Star-Ledger, and news segments by Michelle Won of WZBN-TV and Patrick Regan of NJN News.

News, Sponsorship, Urban Challenge

Final Preparations

Due to some unforeseen construction, we have had to find a new location for our site visit. Thankfully, the FMC Corporation is allowing us to use a portion of their Chemical Research and Development Center in Princeton, NJ for our site visit and preceding testing. We greatly appreciate their generosity and support of our project.

Our site visit is scheduled for 2pm – 6pm on Monday, July 9th. More information is availalble from our events page.

We are also excited to announce that Gladiator Technologies Inc. is the newest addition to our growing list of team sponsors. We look forward to working with Gladiator and their products in the Urban Challenge.

Events, News, Urban Challenge

Site Visit

PAVE is proud to announce that we have been accepted by DARPA to have a site-visit evaluation. The site-visit is the next stage in the multi-step qualification process leading up to the final race on November 3, 2007. Teams that pass the site-visit will move on to the two-part National Qualifying Event (NQE), which will be held in late October, 2007. 52 other teams were also granted site-visits. The official DARPA press release is available here.

The site-visit will take place in mid- to late- June. We will release the actual date once it is confirmed. Our site-visit demonstration will be open to the public. Please contact us if you would be interested in attending.

News, PAVE Team, Urban Challenge

A Visit from our Neighbors

On tuesday afternoon, April 24, we were happy to welcome Mike Selzler to PAVE for a visit. Mike is the leader of team AutoTrek, in nearby Moorestown, NJ. He was kind enough to bring along their autonomous vehicle, which has been entered in both the 2005 and 2007 DARPA Challenges.


(l to r) Prospect Eleven, PAVE’s current vehicle and AutoTrek’s Ford Bronco

We took this opportunity discuss our respective approaches for the upcoming challenge. We also enjoyed how neat it was to have three autonomous vehicles in one place!


Mike Selzler (r) and some of the PAVE team, with our autonomous vehicles.

We have begun to enhance the technical section of our Urban Challenge approach. Check out our latest update on sensing. Stay tuned for further updates.

Downloads, Technical, Urban Challenge

DARPA Video Submission

PAVE is pleased to announce that we have submitted our Video Demonstration to DARPA. We will find out on May 10th whether we have been accepted to the next phase of the competition – a site visit evaulation in June or July. Feel free to view our video here:

We have continued to receive press coverage. Check out some recent articles in The Princeton Packet as well as Princeton’s own E-Quad News Blog. We were also featured in a video clip, at TVJersey.com.

News, PAVE Team

Demonstrations and Events

Our March 23rd Autonomous Vehicle Technology Demonstration was so sucessful, we have decided to host another one! We are inviting media organizations, all of our sponsors and the greater PAVE community to attend another technology demo on Friday, March 30.

Many thanks to Don Polec at ABC Action News 6, in Philadelphia, for running a segment about us on their nightly news:

Despite rain all during the afternoon of the 23rd, we presented our Ford Escape driving fully autonomously for the first time. This successful system integration readies us to continue development of our sensing and navigation systems. Our upcoming demo on the 30th will demonstrate autonomous navigation using a combination of GPS and our own visual lane-detection system.

Finally, we would like to announce that PAVE will be hosting a study break in conjunction with the IEEE-Princeton Chapter on Friday, March 30 at 4:30pm. Join us to learn more about our project and enjoy FREE hoagies, from Hoagie Haven.

News, PAVE Team, Publicity

PAVE in the News

Our recent Dedication Ceremony garnered quite a bit of press attention. We were covered in articles in The Trenton Times and The Newark Star-Ledger. In addition, we were featured in a broadcast of the NJN Nightly News.

Over the past few weeks we have been making excellent progress and we are beginning the hardware and software integration process that will allow our vehicle to perform all of the autonomous capabilities required for the April 13 Video Submission deadline.

We will be holding a demonstration of our autonomous systems on Friday, March 23. This event will be held at our testing facilities on the Forrestal Campus Annex of Princeton University. This event is open to the public, and we invite anyone who is interested to stop by. The invitation to this event can be found here.

News, PAVE Team

Dedication Ceremony and Alumni Day Presentation

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.