March 8, 2004
Grand Challenge Gearing Up
The NY Times is publishing some more information on the DARPA Grand Challenge, highlighting the difficulties as well as the impressive work that has been generates. I am delighted to see the buzz being generated by this, as I think it is a good contest, with minimal ways in which to cheat.
Posted by elkaim at March 8, 2004 12:03 PMThe Pentagon, under a mandate from Congress to save lives by turning to unmanned combat vehicles to meet a third of its needs by 2015, has become impatient with its usual crowd of big-name military contractors, like the Lockheed Martin Corporation and the General Dynamics Corporation, to come up with a solution. It turned instead to the spur of free market capitalism, inspiring a motley band of computer scientists, artificial intelligence experts and robot lovers to take on the challenge.
It is not clear whether any of the couple of dozen vehicles expected to line up at the start will be able to complete the task. After first passing a preliminary test scheduled to begin today, the winning machine will then have to navigate unaided at an average speed of about 20 miles an hour through a desert strewn with boulders, trees, brush, potholes and possibly the odd porcupine or donkey.