Construction
Stanley's original frame was a standard European diesel model Volkswagen Touareg provided by Volkswagen's ERL for the competition. The Stanford Racing Team chose the Touareg for its "drive by wire" control system which could be adapted (and was done so by the ERL) to be run directly from an on-board computer without the use of actuators or servo motors (it is important to note however, that the steering wheel was driven by an electric motor and the gear shifting accomplished with a hydraulic piston).
To navigate, Stanley used five roof mounted Sick AG LIDAR units to build a 3-D map of the environment, supplementing the position sensing GPS system. An internal guidance system utilizing gyroscopes and accelerometers monitored the orientation of the vehicle and also served to supplement GPS and other sensor data. Additional guidance data was provided by a video camera used to observe driving conditions out to eighty meters (beyond the range of the LIDAR) and to ensure room enough for acceleration. Stanley also had sensors installed in a wheel well to record a pattern imprinted on the tire and to act as an odometer in case of loss of signal (such as when driving through a tunnel). Using the data from this sensor, the on-board computer can extrapolate how far it has traveled since the signal was lost.
To process the sensor data and execute decisions, Stanley was equipped with six low-power 1.6 GHz Intel Pentium M based computers in the trunk, running different versions of the Linux operating system.
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