Stanford's Pikes Peak-Climbing Audi TT-S Stanford University has a long tradition of building autonomously navigated cars, like this Audi TT-S designed to race the famous Pikes Peak Hill Climb.

So-heres a first. On Tuesday, a wayward unmanned aerial vehicle crashed in a residential area of El Paso, Texas, about a half mile inside the U.S. border. It landed in a backyard apparently, and no one was hurt and no property was damaged.

The crew, at the end of their duty time, switch the helicopter to unmanned mode and disembark. The Black Hawk searches for and connects to the nearest ground control station, accepts the preprogrammed mission and takes off to find and pick up its first load.

A team of Italian engineers is gearing up for a high-tech road rally that should impress even the outside-the-box dreamers over at DARPA: an 8,000-mile journey from Italy to China, with nobody behind the wheel.

A UK solar-powered plane proved itself as the one to break the world record for the longest time spent in the air by an unmanned autonomous vehicle (UAV), after remaining airborne for two weeks.

4 Feb. 2010, Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. Northrop Grumman's X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration (UCAS-D) successfully took off climbing up to 1500m. high, being airborne about half an hour. The flight provided test data to verify and validate system software for guidance and navigation, and the aerodynamic control of the tailless design.

A suspected al-Shabab fighter has been reportedly killed in an attack carried out by a US assassination drone in southern Somalia.