The Audi Spock vs. Spock video-ad that has been blowing up over the past day or so includes a cameo that is being overlooked by the geekosphere: a cameo appearance by Shelly, the self-driving racecar being developed at Stanford University. It appears as bonus footage beginning at 2:26. (Story continues below video.)
Shelley (no idea where the name comes from) is a collaboration between Stanford's Dynamic Design Lab and Volkswagen's Electronics Research Lab. Last year, mechanical engineering prof Chris Gerdes and his team brought the vehicle to the Thunderhill racetrack in Willows, CA, for "high-speed tests of the latest tweaks to the software that tells her when to brake, how tight to take turns and when to punch the gas." This is cool. (Story continues below video.)
While this is obviously a project made in nerd heaven, the University insists that it is not just fun and games. From a Stanford news service item:
"While Gerdes and crew clearly enjoy racing Shelley, the truth is that pushing the car to its limits on the racetrack – its brake pads melted on its last Thunderhill run – is the best way to learn what type of stress a car is under in a crisis, and what it takes to get the car straightened out.
"For example, the math involved in getting a spinning wheel to grip the pavement is very similar to recovering from a slide on a patch of ice. 'If we can figure out how to get Shelley out of trouble on a race track, we can get out of trouble on ice,' Gerdes said."
The car's sensors — equipped with high-end GPS, etc. -- "compute the fastest line around a course and execute the exact corrections required to stick to it."
Still, at this point Shelly can't quite compete with human racecar drivers. "A person relies more on feel and intuition, and thus may, for example, allow the car to swing too wide in one turn if he knows it sets him up better for the next."
In August of last year, at a real race at Laguna Seca down in Monterey, the Stanford group enlisted two pro drivers to strap on a suite of biological sensors that recorded body temperature and heart rate. And: "In an effort to determine which driving maneuvers require the most concentration and brainpower, scalp electrodes … register[ed] drivers' brain activity as they race[d] against other humans."
Obviously this sounds enough like sci-fi to get Shelly a gig with one of the genre's biggest stars.
Note: Many people are calling the Spock vs. Spock vid the greatest car commercial of all time. It's charming as hell, but this is the greatest car commercial of all time:
Related:
The 'Affordable' Tesla.
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