A team of researchers at the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford (CARS) plans to race an autonomous vehicle up the 14,000-foot Pikes Peak without a driver at race speeds, something never done before.

The Audi TTS, nicknamed Shelley, knows exactly where she is on the road by using a differential GPS. Unlike a standard GPS system, hers corrects for interference in the atmosphere, showing the cars position on the Earth with an accuracy of about two centimeters. Shelley measures her speed and acceleration with wheel-speed sensors and an accelerometer, and gets her bearings from gyroscopes, which control equilibrium and direction.

The research may lead to safer cars that respond to human error.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exdUD02JryI