In 1986, a blue Chevy van often cruised around the streets of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania near Carnegie Mellon University. To the casual observer, nothing about it appeared out of the ordinary. Most people would pass by it without noticing the camcorder peeking out from its roof, or the fact that there were no hands on the steering wheel.
The defense department, more specifically, was looking to build autonomous scouts. These scouts would go out on the field and map uncharted territories, where there’s usually a greater risk of hidden mines and enemies — a job humans would before risk their lives for. And thus, the Terragator was born in 1983.
If that sounds like a lot of work for computers from the 1980s, that’s because it was. Since the hardware had not yet caught up to such advancements, it would take ages to churn out the calculations, and as a result, Navlab 1’s speed was limited to 20 mph. Soon enough, Navlab 2 was cruising at 55mph on a 102-mile road trip from Pittsburgh to Erie, Pennsylvania. “That was the first really long trip it had done and convinced me that someday we’d see vehicles that could drive themselves on public roads,” added Dr. Pomerleau.