Posted on 10/08/2005 6:24:08 AM PDT by billorites
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The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (Darpa) challenging competition offers a $2m (£1.1m) prize.
But the vehicles have to negotiate 240km of tough rocky and hilly terrain on their own. Last year, none finished.
The driverless vehicles range from souped-up SUVs (sports utility vehicles) to hi-tech dune buggies.
The race is organised by the Pentagon's defence agency to push research into autonomous vehicles for the US military. This year it has doubled the prize fund for the challenge.
| It's a no-brainer that 50 to 60 years from now, cars will drive themselves Sebastian Thrun, Stanford University |
The vehicles have been kitted out and modified with GPS (global positioning satellite), cameras, infrared sensors, computing equipment, and lasers to guide them across the tough terrain.
They are not allowed to be controlled, even remotely, by humans.
"We can now see a future where these vehicles will take the place of soldiers in harm's way," said Ron Kurjanowicz, manager of the Darpa Grand Challenge race.
The captain of the Stanford University team, Sebastian Thrun, was confident that this year's race would produce a winner.
He was also confident about the future for autonomous vehicles. "It's a no-brainer that 50 to 60 years from now, cars will drive themselves," he said.
Tough heats
The 23 finalists were chosen after eight days of qualifying events over much shorter courses.
They include a Hummer built by Carnegie Mellon University, called H1ghlander, a converted Humvee named Sandstorm, a modified Volkswagen Touareg by Stanford University, a six-wheel truck and a Jeep Grand Cherokee called Spirit.
The 40-pupil team from Palos Verdes High School in California are in the running with their Doom Buggy modified SUV.
They were one of 195 teams that originally applied to take part in the gruelling cross-country challenge.
The 23 will have 10 hours to complete the race, which will include a human-made obstacle course.
But the precise route is kept secret until two hours before the competition.
The teams have had varying levels of sponsorship to develop their desert robots.
Some have had millions pumped into the projects from corporate sponsorship, while others have scraped together much less funding.
If no-one wins this time round, Darpa said it would most likely run another race.
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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