Alain Kornhauser is Professor of Operations Research & Financial Engineering at Princeton University. He serves as Director of the Transportation Program where he continues his basic research in Transportation focused on the real-time operation of large fleets of driverless vehicles and on the development of Deep-Learning Neural Networks that safely drive road vehicles. He was the Faculty Leader of Princeton’s entries the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge and 2007 Urban Challenge and continues his interest in the complete automation of the automobile with particular interest in the autonomousTaxi concept and its potential to transform mass transit and deliver ubiquitous mobility to everyone. He is Faculty Chair of Princeton Autonomous Vehicle Engineering (PAVE) an extracurricular undergraduate Smart Driving Car research effort at Princeton, Editor of the Smart Driving Cars Newsletter and Board Chair of the Advanced Transit Association (ATRA). He is currently in the process of creating a major Center for Automated Road Transportation Safety. In addition to his teaching and research duties he serves as the ORFE’s Department’s Director of Undergraduate Studies.

Princeton Autonomous Vehicle Engineering (PAVE) is an undergraduate student-led research group at Princeton University dedicated to advancing and promoting the field of robotics through competitive challenges, self-guided research and community outreach while providing extracurricular learning and leadership opportunities to student members.
Princeton Autonomous Vehicle Engineering (PAVE) has its origins in the Spring of 2004. A group of students in Professor Alain Kornhauser’s Transportation class watched the unfolding of the 2004 DARPA Grand Challenge, in which no team traveled more than 7.5 miles on the 150+ mile course, and decided that they could put together a DARPA Grand Challenge team at Princeton that could be competitive.
The Princeton team successfully competed in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge with Prospect Eleven, passing numerous qualification steps and seeding 10th out of 23 finalists. Following the 2005 Challenge, the team continued to improve the hardware and software systems on Prospect Eleven.
In the Spring of 2006, the DARPA Urban Challenge was announced, to take place in October, 2007. Through the generosity of Ford Motor Company, PAVE acquired a vehicle, named Prospect Twelve, for the Urban Challenge in February, 2007. PAVE again passed several qualification procedures and was among 35 teams at the semifinals of the Urban Challenge. After the Urban Challenge, DARPA announced no plans for further competitions. Instead, PAVE elected to compete in the 2008 Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC), held in May, 2008.
At the 2008 IGVC, PAVE won 1st place for our technical paper (PDF) and design presentation, 4th place in a waypoint-following challenge and 6th place in the lane-following challenge. Overall, PAVE finished 3rd out of 47 teams and won rookie-of-the-year.
PAVE returned to the IGVC in 2009 with Argos, an entirely new, redesigned robot. The team won first place in the navigation (waypoint-following) challenge.
For the 2010 IGVC, the team once again built Phobetor, a new robot based on the design of Argos. The team was awarded 2nd place in the design challenge and won acclaim for its robot design and technical paper. 2010 is also the year that PAVE began working on the ARM (Autonomous Robotic Manipulator).
PAVE continues to work on Prospect 12 and Phobetor, focusing on refining and improving the systems developed for the Urban Challenge and IGVC. Our goal is to have Prospect Twelve successfully pass the NJ State drivers’ exam, thereby becoming the first car to obtain its own drivers license. We are currently in the midst of a fundamental redesign of Prospect 12, so this should be an exciting year.