The development of driverless cars has long pre-dates Silicon Valley and other tech companies, with pioneers in Germany and the United States quietly developing the foundations of self-driving technology. Ernst Dickmanns, Red Whittaker, Sebastian Thrun, Chris Urmson and Anthony Levandowski were among the early pioneers in the field of driver-autonomous vehicles. These pioneers gained widespread attention during the DARPA Grand Challenges, a series of autonomous-vehicle races by the Department of Defense to accelerate progress in self-defence technology. Dickmann, now nearly 90, pioneered dynamic computer vision, the technology that allows machines to interpret moving images in real time. He also demonstrated autonomous driving at highway speeds of up to 96 kilometers per hour on a stretch of the autobahn.