In the early years, the research group formed by Broggi, Massimo Bertozzi and Alessandra Fascioli designed, realized, and tested an
autonomous car known as ARGO. ARGO was a passenger car able to perceive the environment through the use of micro cameras, analyze the surroundings, plan a trajectory, and drive itself on normal roads. It was tested in 1998 with a 2000+ km tour in Italy, dubbed Mille Miglia in Automatic. In this test the vehicle drove for more than 94% in automatic mode. It was the first test in the world to use off-the-shelf and low cost technology (a
Pentium 200 MHz PC and two low-cost video-phone cameras) in normal conditions of traffic, environment, and weather. In 2005 a vehicle called
TerraMax was able to successfully conclude the
DARPA Grand Challenge; VisLab's vision system was its primary means of perception. In 2007, a new version of
TerraMax qualified for the
DARPA Urban Challenge, which was not completed due to a fault. In 2010 VisLab launched
VIAC, the
VisLab Intercontinental Autonomous Challenge, a 13,000 km test run for autonomous vehicles, from Italy to China. This was the first autonomous driving test on an intercontinental route; it lasted three months. On 12 July 2013 VisLab tested the BRAiVE vehicle in downtown Parma. BRAiVE successfully negotiating two-way narrow rural roads, traffic lights, pedestrian crossings, speed bumps, pedestrian areas, and tight roundabouts. VisLab engineers activated the vehicle in Parma University Campus and stopped it in Piazza della Pilotta (downtown
Parma): a 20 minute run in a real environment, together with real traffic at 11am on a working day, that required absolutely no human intervention. On 31 March 2014 VisLab unveiled the new autonomous car DEEVA, which features more than 20 cameras, 4 lasers, GPS, KTM and IMU, and all sensors are hidden. ==Location==