“Stanley is an autonomous vehicle created by Stanford University’s Stanford Racing Team in cooperation with the Volkswagen Electronics Research Laboratory (ERL). It competed in, and won, the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge, earning the Stanford Racing Team the 2 million dollar prize, the largest prize money in robotic history.”

Google is Google. Now why would Google want to license Stanley’s sensing technology? It’s pretty preposterous to think that Google might want to enter this year’s DARPA Urban Challenge, which it is. Apparently what Google really wants to do with Stanley’s sensing technology is to apply it to improve Google Maps and Google Earth.

Although Google is winning most of its “battles” with Microsoft and is far ahead when it comes to lots of it applications Microsoft is ahead when it comes to Virtual Earth, its 3-D mapping application. Google Maps is really good too but it’s 3-D simulations are not only limited but also not as cool as Virtual Earth’s renderings. This is where Stanley can help Google.

Stanley gained fame not only because it won the Stanford Racing Team a whopping $2 million but because it was actually able to navigate the Mojave Desert for 10 hours without any human input AND without getting lost. Of course this is due to its great sensing technology as well as advanced software. Google, as usual, recognizes something really good and so licensed Stanley’s sensing technology reportedly to use it to scan building faces and so improve the 3-D rendering of both Google Maps and Google Earth.