October 8, 2005
And They're Off!
The second annual DARPA GRAND CHALLENGE has begun in Primm, Nevada. This years race of autonomous vehicles across the desert looks to be more competitive than last years. Smart money is on the Stanford/VW team with the modified Tuareg, which performed very well in the NQE. Don't discount Red Team from CMU, either, as they are the other front runner. Rummors have it that they both completed last years run during testing.
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.
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.
See also the DARPA GRAND CHALLENGE site for more info.
Posted by elkaim at October 8, 2005 1:24 PM