Humanoid & robot atlas
Tsukuba self-driving car
Photo: Tsukuba Mechanical Engineering Laboratory (MITI) (official image), from aist.go.jp. Image policy
RetiredJapanSupervised

Tsukuba Mechanical Engineering Laboratory · research vehicle

Tsukuba self-driving car

An experimental car from a Japanese government lab that followed white street markings using two video cameras, without any guide wires buried in the road.

Price
—research vehicle, not sold
Autonomy
SupervisedHow it runs
Driverless
Not yetSafety driver on board
Fleet
—Not published
Speed
30.0 km/hFaster than 0%
Range
—Not published
Compare

Why it matters

Often cited as the first semi-autonomous car that did not need wires under the road.

Real-world use

No customers or deployments reported yet.

Timeline

First shown
1977
Released
Not yet
Demonstrated by the Tsukuba Mechanical Engineering Laboratory

Maker

Tsukuba Mechanical Engineering LaboratoryCompany

How it drives

Fleet and city figures move fast; each carries its date and who reported it.

Driverless status
Safety driver on board
Where it runs
Test track, Japan

How it stacks up

Against other research pioneers that publish the figure. Pick a measure.

  1. VaMPBundeswehr University Munich with Mercedes-Benz (EUREKA PROMETHEUS) · 1994175.0 km/h
  2. VITA-2Daimler-Benz (EUREKA PROMETHEUS) · 1994130.0 km/h
  3. Navlab 2Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute · 1990110.0 km/h
  4. VaMoRsBundeswehr University Munich (Ernst Dickmanns) · 198696.0 km/h
  5. Firefly (Google self-driving car prototype)Waymo (Google self-driving car project) · 201440.0 km/h
  6. Navlab 1Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute · 198632.0 km/h
  7. Tsukuba self-driving carTsukuba Mechanical Engineering Laboratory (MITI) · 197730.0 km/h

Tsukuba self-driving car is faster than 0% of the 6 other research pioneers that publish a speed. Bars show the 6 closest in date.

Speed 30.0 km/h 30.0 km/h175.0 km/h #7 of 7 · faster than 0%

Not published by the maker: height, weight, payload, joints, battery, price.

Public attention

A historic robot: no longer sold or in use, so it is not ranked against current vehicles.

  • No Wikipedia article of its own yet
  • No recent press stories listed yet

Measures how much people read and write about a robot, not how good it is. Measured 2026-10-14; same method for every robot. How it is measured

What’s inside

No component details published yet.

Movement
Wheeled base
How it runs
Supervised. Works by itself while a person watches and steps in.

From the maker

Tsukuba self-driving car is the only vehicle from Tsukuba Mechanical Engineering Laboratory (MITI) in the atlas.

Made, sold and where

No production or sales figures published yet.

Price
Not publishedresearch vehicle, not sold
How to get one
No official buying page found

Sources

Figures come from a published paper. Every link below backs something on this page.

National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) AIST's history of autonomous-driving technology development

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