Innovative Use of TI DSPs in Self Navigating, Unmanned Vehicle Helps Team D.A.D. Win ESC Best of Show

Team D.A.D.'s High Performance Vision-Based Navigation System and Highly Integrated Vehicle Control Systems Impressed Judges

HOUSTON and MORGAN HILL, Calif., March 31 -- By using the latest digital signal processing (DSP) and control technology, Texas Instruments, Incorporated (TI), and Digital Auto Drive (D.A.D.), a research and development organization, announced that the Team D.A.D. entry was chosen as the most innovative new technology in the automotive category at the Embedded Systems Show in San Francisco last night. For more information on Team D.A.D.'s winning entry and TI's DSP technology, please see: www.ti.com/darpachallenge .

TI's leading video and imaging DSPs and control technologies are at the heart of Team D.A.D.'s unmanned, self navigating vehicle, a vision navigation and vehicle control system integrated into a four wheel drive Toyota Tundra truck.

"By implementing our Real Time Imaging (RTI) stereo-vision system with TI's 1 GHz TMS320C64x DSP technology, we were able to take advantage of the real time processing that TI DSPs give us," said Dave Hall, founder, captain and chief scientist of Team D.A.D. The RTI system analyzes up to 30 billion pixels of information and makes decisions on vehicle direction, enabling it to see 700 to 800 feet ahead, all in real time. Direction and speed of the vehicle is controlled by a single highly-integrated TI TMS320LF2407A digital signal controller that manages two servo motors for braking and steering, as well as the vehicle's electronic accelerator via the on-chip CAN bus.

Team D.A.D. was one of fifteen entries to qualify for the recently held government sponsored Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenge. The Grand Challenge is designed to accelerate the development for unmanned, self navigating or autonomous military vehicles. The U.S. military has mandated that one third of all military vehicles to be autonomous by 2015.

TI offers a broad portfolio of automotive solutions used by the leading automotive and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) around the world. Designed to meet customer specifications for performance, safety, and comfort while reducing the environmental impact of the automobile, these solutions include analog and mixed signal, digital logic, and DSP devices. For more information on TI automotive solutions, please see www.ti.com/automotive .

About Digital Auto Drive

Digital Auto Drive (D.A.D.) is a research and development organization focused on commercializing vision-recognition based on 3D imaging and navigational technologies. D.A.D.'s first goal is to win the DARPA Grand Challenge, proving D.A.D. technology in a real-world application. For more information visit www.digitalautodrive.com .

About DARPA

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is the central research and development organization for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). The Agency manages and directs basic and applied research and development projects for DoD, and pursues research and technology where the risk and payoff are both very high and where success may provide dramatic advances for traditional military roles and missions.

About Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments Incorporated provides innovative DSP and Analog technologies to meet our customers' real world signal processing requirements. In addition to Semiconductor, the company's businesses include Sensors & Controls, and Educational & Productivity Solutions. TI is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and has manufacturing, design or sales operations in more than 25 countries.

Texas Instruments is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TXN. More information is located on the World Wide Web at www.ti.com .

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