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{{about|the driverless car|other uses|vamp (disambiguation)}}
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The '''VaMP''' [[driverless car]] was one of the first truly [[autonomy|autonomous]] cars <ref>[https://www.springer.com/978-1-84628-637-7 Dynamic Vision for Perception and Control of Motion], a 2007 book by Ernst D. Dickmanns</ref> along with its twin vehicle, the [[VITA-2]]. They were able to drive in heavy traffic for long distances without human intervention, using [[computer vision]] to recognize rapidly moving obstacles such as other cars, and automatically avoid and pass them.
[[File:VAMP.png|thumb|300px|The experimental driverless car VaMP (Versuchsfahrzeug für autonome Mobilität und Rechnersehen) which was developed in the context of the European research project PROMETHEUS: (top left) components for autonomous driving; (right) VaMP and view into passenger cabin (lower right); (lower left) bifocal camera arrangement (front) on yaw platform]]
The VaMP was constructed by the team of [[Ernst Dickmanns]] at the [[Bundeswehr University of Munich]] and [[Mercedes-Benz]] in the 1990s as part of the 800 million ECU [[EUREKA Prometheus Project]] on autonomous vehicles (1987–1995). It was a 500 SEL Mercedes re-engineered such that it was possible to control [[steering wheel]], [[throttle]], and [[brake]]s through [[computer]] commands based on real-time evaluation of image sequences. [[Computer software|Software]] was written that translated sensory data into appropriate driving commands. Due to the limited computing power of the time period, sophisticated [[computer vision]] strategies were necessary to react in real time. The Dickmanns team solved the problem through an innovative approach to dynamic computer vision.  Attention control including artificial [[saccade|saccadic]] movements of the platform carrying the cameras allowed the system to focus its attention on the most relevant details of the visual input. Four cameras with two different focal lengths for each hemisphere were used in parallel for this purpose. [[Kalman filter]]s were extended to handle perspective imaging and to achieve robust autonomous driving even in the presence of [[noise]] and [[uncertainty]]. Sixty [[transputer]]s, a type of [[parallel computing|parallel computer]]s, were used to deal with the enormous (by 1990s standards) computational demands.

In 1994, the VaMP and its twin [[Blue Dream Melody|VITA-2]] were stars of the final international presentation of the PROMETHEUS project in October 1994 on Autoroute 1 near the Charles-de-Gaulle airport in [[Paris]]. With a safety driver and guests on board, the twins drove more than {{cvt|1000|km}} in normal [[traffic]] on the three-lane highway at speeds up to {{cvt|130|km/h}}. They demonstrated lane changes left and right, autonomously passing other cars after maneuver approval by the safety driver.

One year later, the autonomous Mercedes-Benz drove more than {{convert|1000|mi|km|-3}} from Munich to [[Copenhagen]] and back in traffic at up to {{cvt|180|km/h}}, again planning and executing maneuvers to pass other cars with safety driver approval. However, only in a few critical situations (such as unmodeled construction areas) a safety driver took over completely. Again, active computer vision was used to deal with rapidly changing street scenes. The car achieved speeds exceeding {{cvt|175|km/h}} on the [[Germany|German]] [[Autobahn]], with a [[arithmetic mean|mean]] distance between human interventions of {{cvt|9|km}}. Despite being a research system without emphasis on long distance reliability, it drove up to {{cvt|158|km}} without any human intervention.

GPS

Most current robot cars as well as commercial vehicles with driver assistance use [[Global Positioning System|GPS]] so that they know precisely where they are.{{Citation needed|date=April 2010}} However, the VaMP did not use GPS, and relied on vision only.

VAMP

The VaMP and VITA-2 projects pioneered many hardware and software concepts that are essential for autonomous robots. They left a big impression on many observers and heavily influenced robot car research and funding decisions worldwide.{{Citation needed|date=April 2010}}  Since May 2006, VaMP is on display at the [[Deutsches Museum]] in [[Munich]], [[Germany]].

== See also ==
* [[Driverless car]]
* [[VIAC]] the Intercontinental Autonomous Challenge of 2010
* [[EUREKA Prometheus Project]]
* [[DARPA Grand Challenge]]
* [[ELROB]] trials

== References ==
<references/>

{{Autonomous cars and enabling technologies}}

[[Category:Experimental self-driving cars]]