Dr. William L. “Red” Whittaker
Dr. William L. “Red” Whittaker is the Fredkin Professor of Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University. He has developed robots for tasks such as space exploration, volcano interior exploration, and assessment of the damage at the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster. He was the team leader for the Carnegie Mellon Red Team whose self-driving robotic cars, Sandstorm and Highlander, finished in second and third place in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge, a 132 mile race for driverless cars through the desert Southwest. He is the team leader for Carnegie Mellon’s Tartan Racing team in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge.
Why are robots important for the world?
Robots will alter the way we develop the world, secure the world, feed the world and explore other worlds. Everything that we have came ultimately from farming or mining, and robots have great roles in that.
What is your biggest challenge in preparing for the DARPA Urban Challenge?
The biggest challenge is developing the computer skill for passing, merging, and driving in intersections, and combining those skills for driving a complete route. The robot is required to blend those skills to create a performance that we would call driving.
How did you feel not finishing first in the DARPA Grand Challenge?
The technological achievement is what mattered – that we came away with a clear sense of a rock solid comprehensive technology.
How do you think most people see this technology?
People are very intrigued and very hungry to see it and experience it. It goes with any breakthrough technology. It was no different in the age of the Wright Brothers with flying machines. How about cars – in 1906, the Model T wasn’t even thought about. There were just a couple of experiments in garages. It’s the same thing with computers. They all start the same way. They go on to change the world in bigger ways than the pioneers perceived. And the people who begin the work are not the ones who play because they’re paid; they play for the love of the game. And almost no one really sees the end use and the enterprise that results.
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