Stanford Cart

A part of the The Computer Museum Slide Series Five: Robots Text from Robot Slide Series insert - "The Stanford Cart, developed at Stanford AI Laboratory, was originally built to simulate a remote-controlled moon rover. It was redesigned between 1967 and 1970 to automatically follow a white line on a road. An on-board television camera transmitted information to a remote computer that controlled the Cart's movements.Hans Moravec rebuilt the Cart in 1977, equiping it with stereo vision. A television camera mounted on a rail on top of the Cart took pictures from several different angles and relayed them to a computer. The computer then gauged the distance between the Cart and obstacles in its path, and maneuvered the Cart around these obstacles. In 1979, Moravec's Cart successfully crossed a chair-filled room without human intervention. On loan from Stanford University, Palo Alto, California"