November 5, 2007
Applanix Technology Directs Teams to Top Two Places in Pentagon-Sponsored Autonomous Vehicle Race

POS LV mobile mapping system key factor in universities Carnegie Mellon and Stanford’s first and second place finish at DARPA Urban Challenge

VICTORVILLE, CALIFORNIA & RICHMOND HILL, ONTARIO – November 5th – Applanix Corporation, a leading developer of positioning and orientation systems, congratulates Carnegie Mellon University and Stanford University on their first and second ranking respectively at the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge autonomous vehicle race in Victorville, California. Employing Applanix Position and Orientation Systems for Land Vehicles (POS LV), which uses inertial/GPS mobile mapping technology, as their navigational and directional systems, Carnegie Mellon received $2 million USD for being the fastest qualifying vehicle to successfully direct its driverless robot vehicle through mock military missions. Additionally, Stanford University received $1 million USD for placing second in the field.

DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is the central research and development organization for the U.S. Department of Defense. Its Urban Challenge race is an autonomous vehicle research and development program, which has a mandate to develop technology that will increase the safety of military personnel by eliminating the need to send troops on dangerous battlefield missions.
DARPA revealed its demanding Urban Challenge course on November 3rd at the Southern California Logistics Airport (SCLA) located at the former George Air Force Base in California. Featuring obstacles set in a mock city environment, teams were tasked with dispatching driverless vehicles to maneuver and execute simulated military supply missions while merging into moving traffic, navigating traffic circles and negotiating busy intersections.

“This year’s race proved to be one of the most highly competitive fields we’ve seen beginning with a select group of 36 teams entering the qualifying event, 11 moving on to the Urban Challenge race and only six vehicles actually completing the course,” said Steve Woolven, president, Applanix Corporation. “We’re thrilled to have played a significant role in Carnegie Mellon and Stanford’s placing in the top two positions. Every team seen here worked extremely hard to make it to DARPA and we congratulate each participant for their contribution to the race. The advances made at the DARPA Urban Challenge have significant implications on how positioning technologies can be used in the future.”

Applanix technology was featured in 10 of the 36 cars that entered into the qualifying round, five of the 11 teams eligible for the Urban Challenge race and three of the six vehicles to finish the course, including Carnegie Mellon, Stanford and MIT universities. The Applanix POS LV technology was the number one choice for these teams due to its ability to overcome the extreme technical nature of the course’s real-world dynamic scenarios.

POS LV systems are compact, easily transferable, and fully integrated turnkey position and orientation solutions that can provide a continuous stream of position and orientation data when GPS signals are blocked, reflected or otherwise limited. Given the nature of the urban setting for this year’s event, it was essential for teams to be able to source data outside of a GPS system. GPS relies on line of sight for information and anything interfering with that signal reaching the receiver will introduce errors into the calculations needed to estimate the position of a geographical point.

For more information on the Applanix Position and Orientation Systems for Land Vehicles (POS LV), please visit www.applanix.com.

About Applanix Corporation
Applanix, a Trimble Company (NASDAQ: TRMB), develops, manufactures, sells and supports products and solutions for Mobile Mapping and Positioning. Applanix’ Position and Orientation Systems ( POS) are used in a variety of applications, including road profiling, GIS data acquisition, aerial surveying and mapping, railroad track maintenance and seafloor mapping. Established in 1991, Applanix strives to support customers around the world with exceptional service.

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