Eureka Prometheus Project

The Eureka PROMETHEUS Project (PROgraMme for a European Traffic of Highest Efficiency and Unprecedented Safety, 1987–1995) was the largest R&D project ever in the field of driverless cars. It received €749,000,000 in funding from the EUREKA member states, and defined the state of the art of autonomous vehicles. Numerous universities and car manufacturers participated in this Pan-European project.

In formulating the project, the automotive and industrial partners recognised the need for a wide range of skills and cooperated with over forty research establishments to create a programme consisting of seven sub-projects. Under a steering committee were three projects on industrial research and four on basic research.

Industrial research

PRO-CAR : Driver assistance by computer systems
PRO-NET : Vehicle-to-vehicle communication
PRO-ROAD : Vehicle-to-environment communication

Basic Research

PRO-ART : Methods and systems of artificial intelligence
PRO-CHIP: Custom hardware for intelligent processing in vehicles
PRO-COM : Methods and standards for communication
PRO-GEN : Traffic scenario for new assessment and introduction of new systems

In 1987, some UK Universities expressed concern that the industrial focus on the project neglected import traffic safety issues such as pedestrian protection. PRO-GEN project leader, the UK Government's Transport and Road Research Laboratory noted that research activities should 'in some way, further the aims of the vehicle companies.

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