Ernst Dickmanns
| Ernst Dickmanns | |
|---|---|
| Born |
January 4, 1936 Niederkassel, Nazi Germany |
| Nationality | German |
| Fields | Robotics and Artificial Intelligence |
| Institutions |
Marshall Space Flight Center, Bundeswehr University Munich |
| Alma mater | RWTH Aachen University |
| Known for | Autonomous car |
Ernst Dieter Dickmanns is a German pioneer of dynamic computer vision and of driverless cars. Dickmanns has been a professor at Bundeswehr University Munich (1975–2001), and visiting professor to Caltech and to MIT, teaching courses on "dynamic vision".
Dickmanns was born in 1936. He studied aerospace and aeronautics at RWTH Aachen (1956–1961), and control engineering at Princeton University (1964/65); from 1961 to 1975 he was associated with the German Aero-Space Research Establichment (now DLR) Oberpfaffenhofen, working in the fields of flight dynamics and trajectory optimization.In 1971/72 he spent a Post-Doc Research Associateship with the NASA-Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville (orbiter re-entry). From 1975 to 2001 he was with UniBw Munich, where he initiated the 'Institut fuer Flugmechanik und Systemdynamik' (IFS), the Institut fuer die 'Technik Autonomer Systeme' (TAS), and the research activities in machine vision for vehicle guidance.
In the beginning of the 1980s his team equipped a Mercedes-Benz van with cameras and other sensors. The 5-ton van was re-engineered such that it was possible to control steering wheel, throttle, and brakes through computer commands based on real-time evaluation of image sequences. Software was written that translated the sensory data into appropriate driving commands. For safety reasons, initial experiments in Bavaria took place on streets without traffic. Since 1986 the Robot Car "VaMoRs" managed to drive all by itself, since 1987 at speeds up to 96 km/h, or roughly 60 mph.
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