Dayton
Business Journal
Why
a
Corvette ride at Wright-Patt will go down in history
Joe
Cogliano
On a
breezy spring day at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Sam Schmidt
drove a new Corvette C7 ‘Stingray’ down a 1.5-mile stretch of
runway. Under normal circumstances, that jaunt wouldn’t grab
anyone’s attention with the exception of base security.
However,
this was no joy ride.
Schmidt
— an injured former Indy Racing League driver with no mobility from
the neck down — reached speeds of around 80 miles an hour on
Tuesday using only his head to control the car. As part of the SAM
project, or semi-autonomous motorcar, the ride is being touted as the
first demonstration of technology allowing a quadriplegic to safely
control and operate a car at high speeds.
A
small group of us got to see Schmidt in action, but the big public
debut of this technology is supposed to happen at the Indianapolis
Motor Speedway, just prior to the Indy 500. In fact, I couldn’t
shoot video because I was told ABC and ESPN have exclusive broadcast
rights to the story until the Indy 500 on May 25th.
SAM
is a collaborative venture between Ball Aerospace, Arrow Electronics,
Air Force Research Laboratory, Falci Adaptive Motorsports and Schmidt
Peterson Motorsports. Schmidt, our driver, is an owner of the
motorsports business.
The
successful test at Wright-Patt marks a historical moment in
technology advancements for the disabled. It also bolstered Air Force
research efforts into human interactions with machines, something
called human-machine teaming. The 711th Human Performance Wing at
Wright-Patt, part of AFRL, has put a lot of focus in this area to
advance the control of unmanned aerial systems...
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