Article

2006-10-05 Science & Technology

The first 11 teams for a race in which robot cars will jostle with real ones along mocked-up city streets have been announced. The teams must construct autonomous vehicles to navigate an unfamiliar urban environment in the shortest time possible. The robot racers will face a "simulated" urban course 96 kilometres (60 miles) in length in November 2007. The course will feature urban obstacles, such as trees and buildings, traffic signs and other moving vehicles. Its location is yet to be disclosed. The contestants must obey traffic regulationsso I guess this won't be in Boston?. As well as merging with other women talking on cell phones in their SUVs traffic, changing lanes and observing stop signs, the robo-participants will have to pull into a parking lot for a short period. The first three vehicles to complete the course in less than 6 hours will be awarded prizes.

The event is called the Urban Grand Challenge and organised by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). It is the follow-up its original Grand Challenge, a robotic race across a 212 km desert course, which was successfully completed in October 2005.

The teams that finished first and second in the desert challenge, from Stanford and Carnegie Mellon universities, are among those chosen to take part in the urban event. The Stanford team will enter a modified Volkswagen, while the team from Carnegie Mellon University has teamed up with General Motors and will enter a Chevrolet. A pre-production Camaro would be so cool "The Urban Challenge will develop a leap of capability beyond what is possible in today's human-driven cars," says William Whittaker, the team leader for Carnegie Mellon University.

The cars involved in the original Grand Challenge were fitted with various on-board sensors, including laser range-finders, radar units, stereo cameras and GPS receivers. They also carried several networked computers to process this sensor information and control the vehicle in response. Stanford's vehicle used a machine learning algorithms to mimic the behaviour of a human driver.

The other nine teams selected to participate come from academia and the automotive industry. They are from MIT, Caltech, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Cornell University, Raytheon I guess I gotta root for the home team, then, Honeywell Aerospace, Autonomous Solutions, Golem Group and Oshkosh Truck Corporation. "We received more than 60 proposals from across the US and the world, representing a broad array of backgrounds and technical approaches," I wonder how many they got from Islamic countries? says Norman Whitaker, DARPA's Urban Challenge programme manager.

Each of the 11 teams announced by DARPA will receive $1 million in funding from the agency. Later in October 2006, another set of teams will be announced, but this group will receive no funding from DARPA.

Posted by Jackal 2006-10-05 13:54|| || Front Page|| [11138 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Each of the 11 teams announced by DARPA will receive $1 million in funding from the ~~agency~~................from honest US Taxpayers who have absolutely no clue that DARPA hasn't created a piece of new technology lately.

A pisser....!!!!! A bunch of geeks, academians and pin heads playing with robot cars? Next thing you know they'll be soliciting for Mars Landing money. What is this doing for the war effort? How about more IED robots for sojurs in Iraq?

Posted by Besoeker 2006-10-05 14:52|| 2006-10-05 14:52|| Front Page Top

#2 Time for Monster Garage to get into the act:
Turn R2D2 into a muscle car, or garbage disposal.

Posted by USN, ret. 2006-10-05 15:05|| 2006-10-05 15:05|| Front Page Top

#3 women talking on cell phones in their SUVs traffic ahem! A bit sexist, wouldn't you say? You put two kids and a cell phone in a man's car and I assure you he can't handle it if cute woman drives by. All that we women need to do to control the world is to come up with some really hot robots.

Posted by anon 2006-10-05 16:46|| 2006-10-05 16:46|| Front Page Top

#4 What is this doing for the war effort?

Two things, my friend:

1) frees up soldiers from the vulnerable job of driving supply convoys around.

2) just one more step towards autonomous killbots.

Posted by SteveS 2006-10-05 16:47|| 2006-10-05 16:47|| Front Page Top

#5 Autonomous convoys with MP guards mixed in make a much less attractive target for IEDs, then a slow moving convoy loaded with drivers to behead on video. Also, the Israelis and the West have been working for years on counters to IEDs, and the best one {technological} so far is spotting by UAV through route picture comparision over a few hours. The absolute best way is the locals call us and let us know where the IEDs are, and that is happening more and more.
Also, DARPA exists to make the technology happen that would not ordinarily happen, even if it takes 15-20 years to show up. So, even if the technology is not applicable to the war at hand, it will be to the next one or two down the road. Because as soon as we are done in Iraq, maybe even before, some asshole is going to make sure that we have to fight somewhere else in the world.

Posted by Shieldwolf 2006-10-05 17:00|| 2006-10-05 17:00|| Front Page Top

#6 The entire design of a vehicle can be different without a passenger cab for driver and shotgun.

Think of the difference between a regular plane and a UAV.

And if you have a fairly straight route from the rear area to the combat area, without too much enemy harassment, it would just be heavenly to have autonomous trucks.

Having seen a two-week-long logistics heavy large unit exercise, the transport and supply guys were friggin' exhausted, putting in hard working 18-hour days.

Posted by Anonymoose 2006-10-05 17:14|| 2006-10-05 17:14|| Front Page Top

#7 There's a robot company named Golem? How utterly kewl! I wonder whether the founders are Jewish or Czech?

Posted by trailing wife 2006-10-05 19:53|| 2006-10-05 19:53|| Front Page Top

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