Stanford's Autonomous DeLorean Can't Time Travel, But It Can Do Donuts

Zothecula jumps on the "Back To the Future Day" bandwagon with this news about Stanford's experimental DeLorean. Gizmag reports: "It doesn't have a flux capacitor and may not be able to travel through time like its inspiration in the 1985 feature Back to the Future, but Stanford University's converted DeLorean Multiple Actuator Research Test bed for Yaw (MARTY) can cut some wicked donuts without the aid of a driver. The creation of professor of mechanical engineering Chris Gerdes and his students, the autonomous, electric, drifting automotive research vehicle is part of a student-driven research project into the physical limits of autonomous driving that aims to improve the safe operation of self-driving cars under all conditions."

Re:So it can go in a circle?

[Merk42]

October 12th? Did you use a time traveling DeLorean to post?

Re:

[slashdice]

In all fairness, this is the first time a DeLorean has been driven without parts falling off. They were the Tesla of their time.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Dynamic driving where traction is lost is both difficult and a necessary problem to solve for self-drivers.

Re:

[hummassa]

THIS.

full social media saturation bombing

[Thud457]

holy crap, I can't believe the amount of media coverage B2tF2 30 is getting.
Dance for Robert Zemeckis slashdot, dance!

Can it fly?

[khelms]

Can I run it on a banana peel and some stale beer? Then what good is it?

link to video

[Gravis Zero]

here's the video starting at the point where it does donuts. [youtu.be]

Wow

[drjoe1e6]

This is heavy...

Re:Wow

[khelms]

Is there something wrong with the Earth's gravity?

Re:

[Irate Engineer]

Why don't you make like a tree and get out of here...

Re:

[viperidaenz]

It's all the extra batteries from the electric conversion.

When this Baby Hits 88 MPH...

[Irate Engineer]

...you're going to see some serious shit.

Didn't RTFA, but I watched part of the video ..

[kaka.mala.vachva]

Why is the person in the driver seat holding a joystick on a self driving car?

Re:

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Looks like a deadman switch.

If so, it has to be held down to let the computer keep doing what it wants to. That way, if the car does something that jars the backup driver away from the switch, the car stops, rather than continuing on some wild and dangerous runaway activity.

Rear wheel drive, baby

[sandbagger]

Accept no substitutes!

Some Style

[necro81]

Marty: "Wait a minute. Wait a minute, Doc. Ah... Are you telling me that you built a (drifting autopilot test bed) ... out of a DeLorean?"

Doc: "Yes, the way I see it, if you're gonna build a (drifting autopilot test bed) into a car, why not do it with some style?"

I hope that they'll use A TransAm...

[havana9]

... when they'll build a fully autonomous car. Black with tan seats, of course.