Team Jefferson
Vehicle
Team Jefferson’s New Tommy Junior bot
Tommy Jr. is based on a Scion xB vehicle platform. The team’s secret weapon is the patent pending MAX software platform from Perrone Robotics. MAX represents the DNA and core robotics operating system that enables the rapid drop-in of commercially available and affordable sensors, hardware, and actuators. MAX is based 100% on Sun Microsystems’ Java technology. Tommy Junior’s micro-controllers and single low-cost standard car PC run the MAX robotics platform atop of standard, micro, and Java Real Time System (Java RTS) profiles.
The team’s after-market drop-in approach enables any vehicle whatsoever to be made fully autonomous within a short period of time. Tommy Junior’s cost in parts has been a mere $50,000 which includes the automotive platform itself. After actuators and hardware were dropped in, Tommy Junior was up and running in just 24 hours with Tommy senior navigation and obstacle avoidance capabilities. While Tommy Junior and Tommy senior share the same MAX DNA, Tommy Junior has since surpassed his father’s wits with new rules of behavior rapidly evolved for city driving.
Tommy Junior. He’s a teenage robot coming to a city street near you…and demonstrates that putting a robotic car in every garage with a MAX in every bot is possible now.
Tommy at DARPA Grand Challenge
- A few pictures of Team Jefferson’s “Tommy” Senior at the 2005 qualifying events and in the desert are shown below.
Tommy at the National Qualifying Events (California Speedway).
California Speedway…crossing the finish line.
80 mph in the desert.
Climbing a narrow pass.
