Blacksburg’s TORC Robotics debuts self-driving cars, looks to make … – Martinsville Bulletin

BLACKSBURG Youre probably going to be nervous the first time you pull out of a parking lot in a self-driving car, TORC Robotics CEO Michael Fleming said from his 10 years of experience testing vehicles around the town and beyond.

Next comes the realization that all the humans on the road arent such great drivers after all.

Because this self-driving car is incredibly smooth, its not veering to the right or veering to the left, Fleming said. Its in the center of the lane.

The third sensation hes seen from passengers over and over again may be the most important: boredom.

Thats what happens when technology that appears so impossible and futuristic suddenly comes together in a seamless, safe and reliable way.

Eventually, it just fades into the background.

TORC has been working toward that feeling of comfortable boredom for a decade. Up until now, the 80-person company has worked almost exclusively in the military and mining industries, which Fleming called early adopters of autonomous technology.

But this week the company came out for the first time, thumping its chest as the newest contender in the self-driving consumer vehicle market.

TORC recently drove one of its cars from Blacksburg to the birthplace of the Ford Model T in Detroit, just to show off what the company can do.

We think the automotive industry is at an inflection point, Fleming said. You see a lot of folks making comments about how this technology will be commercially available in the next three to five years. Were working with a lot of big players to make that happen.

TORCs technology is designed to be integrated into automobiles already being produced by major manufacturers. The company would partner with brand name vehicle makers and then find a way to make everything fit together so TORCs technology could be baked in off the assembly lines.

Fleming didnt announce any of these partnerships as he showed off the technology during a recent visit, but he did hint at many more announcements to come later this year.

TORCs two newest self-driving cars, which it uses for its own experiments, are converted Lexus RXs. They hit public roads for the first time in February.

The most noticeable modification is the large, spinning lidar (light detection and ranging) system mounted to the roof. This is one of the main ways the car is able to see the world. Below the lidar is an array of radar, video cameras and two GPS antennas. Additional radar systems are hidden inside the bumpers.

All these sensors feed data to a computer tucked away in a compartment below the trunk.

Inside the vehicle, the only noticeable modification TORC made to the Lexus was the addition of a tablet mounted on the center console.

The car is able to navigate roads on its own by collecting imaging data with the sensors. The computer in the trunk then analyzes the environment, detecting things like road markings, other cars and traffic hazards.

That information is displayed on the tablet so the driver knows if something is going wrong, such as if the car is having a hard time finding markings on the road.

The dashboard has three indicator lights: green to let the driver know all is going well, yellow for when the car detects a minor obstacle that the driver should be aware of, and red for when its time to hand controls back over to a human.

TORC was founded in 2005 and began developing the technology in partnership with Virginia Tech in 2007. The two collaborated to compete in the Urban Challenge hosted by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

TORC was a startup, competing against teams sponsored by General Motors and Google. But the Blacksburg team took third place, a moment Fleming called TORCs first breakthrough.

Fleming said the challenge was a little ahead of its time, as regular car owners back then werent ready to hand the steering wheel over to a robot.

Some of the scientists who competed in the Urban Challenge went to work for Google, which has long been a leader in self-driving technologies. Others went into other fields since there wasnt a market yet for what they were building.

But TORC decided to keep its team together to begin going after different industries that were more ready for change.

Thats why the company began targeting mining companies, where TORC worked with Caterpillar to develop increasingly autonomous equipment. TORC also began working on military applications.

TORC was able to keep growing and learning for 10 years, and it was during that time the consumer market started to change.

I think this was really viewed as science fiction and a research project. But we didnt see it that way 10 years ago, Fleming said.

We were really completely committed to the commercialization of this technology and fulfilling our purpose of impacting the world. Weve held to that for the last decade. To be honest with you, weve been waiting for the automotive industry to catch up.

Fleming said he believes self-driving cars are now just a few years away from regular consumers.

If he had to predict the future, he said he thinks the transition will be similar to those of the past.

A long time ago, he said, people relied on horses for transportation. But then technology advanced and more people began using automobiles.

Today, many people still choose to ride horses. But its mostly for recreation, not to get from point A to point B.

The same, Fleming said, could one day be true of driving.

Not only do we believe this technology will make the world a safer place, but we also believe it will free up a tremendous amount of time in our lives, Fleming said. There are other folks that are maybe viewing this as a sprint. Were convinced its a marathon.

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Blacksburg's TORC Robotics debuts self-driving cars, looks to make ... - Martinsville Bulletin