Posted on 10/08/2005 6:24:08 AM PDT by billorites
You can follow it live Here.
Arrrrrrrrggggggggg! No live yet!!!
ping
4 on the course
and
6 eliminated already
Any sites with text blogging of status?
Finally the Webcast, and Status Board is working... According to Darpa's site discussion board, it seems that Fire Fox would not work.
There is always chance of jamming. Unmanned vehicles must navigate on their own in case of these jamming fields interrupt remote control. Meanwhile, there is a time delay in remote control and that could result in problems. It will also be easier to have unamnned vehicles drive on their own rather than having one person driving each by remote control. Think about thousands of remote vehicles to be controlled. That would cost many people to operate them. For UAVs, not only one is in charge, but many working as a team. If the unmanned vehicles could drive on their own, the user would only have to give its destination and watch the screen. It would also allow one person to move many of these at once.
Sure, remote control would be easier, but that is established technology.
No one successfully finished last year. It's the "fire and forget" requirement that will drive the innovation necessary to advance the technology.
> Wouldn't it make more sense (not to mention be more
> feasible),to build these things with on board video
> and a sat link so they could be controlled in real
> time by an operator anywhere in the world?
That would hardly be a "challenge".
The leader has gone 250%+ farther than the best vehicle from last year.
Impressive 26+ miles so far.
I remember the liberals and anti-American media all claiming the previous race was a total failure with no team winning. Good for the enemy countries watching it being disinformed, but in reality it is pretty revolutionary for unmanned vehicles driving above 35mi per hour without remote control. It wasn't perfect, but pretty close to look like some one is driving it. I have a hard time teaching my 20th century brain that no one is in the vehicle driving it. Who could have imagined science fiction stuff becoming reality. It is happening now, in reality. Lasers, rail cannon, unmanned vehicles, those which were once science fiction are all becoming reality.
Yes, that is also one of the objective. Unmanned vehicles will also allow transport of supplies which are often targeted for the soft skin, as in Iraq.
The two lead vehicles are avg'ing over 60 mph right now coming up on the 40 minute mark.
Wow, Strykers and hummers would be able to be converted to UGV at that speed driving near its top speed.
ping
The leader is a converted '99 hummer.
Implications of this won't be appreciated for quite some time. So I won't speculate or reply with the sci-fi type scenarios soon to be regular training drills in military units.
Good.
This looks to me like a very efficient use of DARPA funding. It taps into a much broader expertise and inventiveness base, provides a much larger sample, and tests far more technologies than would be possible with the usual DARPA megabucks R&D contract with one or two companies.
BTTT
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