Spirit, Axion Racing’s autonomous Jeep Grand Cherokee, is the first unmanned vehicle to drive itself to the summit of Pikes Peak. The vehicle drove without human interaction or remote control. This is the first time an autonomous vehicle has completed the same course used annually by human drivers participating in the Pikes Peak Hill Climb race.

Colorado Springs, CO, (PRWEB) July 7, 2006 -- New Zealand’s Rod Millen is the fastest human to ever drive up to the top of Colorado’s Pikes Peak, at 10 minutes and 4.6 seconds, but he might start looking over his shoulder. The day after the 90th running of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb’s Race to the Clouds, Axion Racing’s autonomous vehicle Spirit completed the 12.42 mile route in 47 minutes and 10.3 seconds. It’s almost five times as long as Millen's record, but no one was driving as the vehicle drove around 156 corners, many of them 2,000 foot cliffs with no guardrails.

“We would have reached the top quicker, but Spirit kept having to apply brakes to stay back from slower human controlled vehicles,“ said Bill Kehaly, Axion Racing’s Team Leader, “Our top speed is presently 25 miles per hour and we think we can break 30 minutes at this September’s inaugural Pikes Peak Robot Hill Climb.”

Using on-board computers to analyze data from GPS signals, lasers, stereo cameras, sound systems, and radar units, the self-driving vehicle is able to know where it is and where it needs to go. These capabilities were successfully field tested when Spirit joined the half million people who reach Pikes Peak’s Summit House each year.

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