3/25/2008

Mayor Meets Boss

Back in December, Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl hosted Carnegie Mellon’s Tartan Racing team at his office, where he issued a proclamation recognizing the team’s big win in the DARPA Urban Challenge robot race Nov. 3 in Victorville, Calif.  Today, the team planned to pay the mayor back, by hosting him at its Robot City headquarters in Hazelwood and giving him a spin in Boss, the robotic SUV.

His Honor showed up, but Boss was, well, beside itself. For reasons not immediately clear, there was a three-meter discrepency between where Boss was and where Boss thought it was, based on its reading of GPS signals. When driving on a road, a nine-foot discrepency  between where a vehicle is and where it should be can have nasty consequences. So Chris Urmson, the team’s director of technology, told a disappointed Ravenstahl that the ride was not going to be possible today.The mayor took it in stride, of course, and used the opportunity to take a close look at Boss’ sensors, computers and controls. "Unfortunately, because of some glitches, I won’t be able to take a ride, but it’s great to see it," he said.

He also got a first-hand look at Robot City, a portion of the old LTV Steel site leased by Carnegie Mellon where Boss and other robots are being built and tested. Institutions such as Carnegie Mellon are important to Pittsburgh economic growth, the mayor said, and so it will be important that the community continue to make such resources available to Carnegie Mellon students and researchers.

Byron Spice