You need to look deeper into the ALVINN project (and the projects the preceded and came after it); it was one of the earlier attempts at a CNN-like architecture

You need to look deeper into the ALVINN project (and the projects the preceded and came after it); it was one of the earlier attempts at a CNN-like architecture for self-driving vehicles. A good start is here: http://repository.cmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2874&context=compsci http://repository.cmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2874&c... And yes, that van held a rack-mounted computing system that included a WARP systolic array processor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WARP_(systolic_array) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WARP_(systolic_array) ...which is very similar to what we have today as a GPU; it was basically a "high-speed" (for its time) vector processing system (in other words, perfect for neural-network processing). The processor on the vehicle ran the pre-trained model; training the model using similar machines took a really long time (weeks, iirc), even with the small number and sizes of layers they were working with. Compare and contrast the ALVINN project (there's a lot of research papers and such on it - video, pictures, etc - dig into it if you are interested) to NVidia's End-to-End CNN self-driving vehicle: https://devblogs.nvidia.com/parallelforall/deep-learning-self-driving-cars/ https://devblogs.nvidia.com/parallelforall/deep-learning-sel... You'll find a lot of parallels (and ALVINN - plus one or two of the other projects, iirc, is mentioned in their paper). I'm familiar with a lot of this mainly thru my self-study of machine learning and deep learning via a combination of courses from Udacity and (now) Coursera. My first impressions about ALVINN actually came from articles and video about it when I was a kid in the 1980s; I didn't understand how it worked at the time, but I was really impressed and intrigued by it. In 2011, I took part in (and ultimately completed) Andrew Ng's "ML Class" MOOC (this became one of Coursera's first courses) - and he made mention of ALVINN as a part of the course - and it inspired this guy, who was part of the class, to re-create it: http://blog.davidsingleton.org/nnrccar/ http://blog.davidsingleton.org/nnrccar/ So you aren't too off-base here; yes, that rack of machinery back in the 1980s has shrunk to pocket-size. Earlier this year, as part of the course for Udacity's "Self-Driving Car Engineer" Nanodegree program, I implemented (using their simulator) a version of the NVidia End-to-End CNN architecture to drive the simulated car around the simulation track based only on what it learned from my own "driving" in the simulation. Finally - if you are really interested in this - and want to compete on somewhat of a budget - there's this (among so many other similar competitions out there): https://diyrobocars.com/ https://diyrobocars.com/