Slashdot Mirror

Having the cutest team member!
http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/Teams/TeamAnnieway.asp

True 3D solid-state flash LIDAR devices exist. We've visited Advanced Scientific
Concepts in Santa Barbara, CA, and have seen an eye-safe 128 x 128 pixel solid state
flash 3D LIDAR suitable for outdoor work in operation on an optical bench. The device
consists of two custom chips bonded back to back using ball grid array techniques. The
front chip contains the array of detectors, and the rear chip contains the counters, timers,
and interface logic. The detector chip typically uses indium arsenide technology. Some
versions are front-ended by a photomultiplier cathode, like a night vision device. (The
photomultiplier effect is at the atomic level, and has no integration delay, so it can be
used to front-end a LIDAR detector.) The two-chip approach is a convenience for
prototyping; a volume production unit would probably be a single chip.

And here's the link to DARPA's website.
http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/

1. Tartan Racing (Carnegie Mellon)
2. Stanford Racing Team (Stanford)
3. Victor Tango (Virginia Tech)

http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/index.asp

This Prius had a more spectacular escape attempt. Personally, though, I'm rooting for Team Oshkosh, formerly Team Terramax. They completed the grand challenge course (one of only 4 to do so), but they took way too long to place so here's hoping they do better this year! Oh, and here's hoping they're quick on the kill switch if that monster of a truck glitches out...

The next step then is to put one of these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oerlikon_35_mm_twin_cannon

on top of one of these:

http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/gallery05.asp

Urban Reasoning and Geospatial Exploitation Technology (URGENT)

The Urban Reasoning and Geospatial Exploitation Technology (URGENT) program is will develop a 3D urban object recognition and exploitation system that enables advanced mission planning and situation analysis capabilities for the warfighter operating in urban environments.

The recognition of targets in urban environments poses unique operational challenges for the warfighter. Historically, target recognition has focused on conventional military objects, with particular emphasis on military vehicles such as tanks and armored personnel carriers. In many cases, these threats exhibit unique signatures and are relatively geographically isolated from densely populated areas. The same cannot be said of today's asymmetric threats, which are embedded in urban areas, thereby forcing U.S. Forces to engage enemy combatants in cities with large civilian populations. Under these conditions, even the most common urban objects can have tactical significance: trash cans can contain improvised explosive devices, doors can conceal snipers, jersey barriers can block troop ingress, roof tops can become landing zones, and so on. Today's urban missions involve analyzing a multitude of urban objects in the area of regard. As military operations in urban regions have grown, the need to identify urban objects has become an important requirement for the military. Understanding the locations, shapes, and classifications of objects is needed for a broad range of pressing urban mission planning analytical queries (e.g., finding all roof top landing zones on three story buildings clear of vertical obstructions and verifying ingress routes with maximum cover for ground troops). In addition, it will enable automated time-sensitive situation analysis (e.g., alerting for vehicles found on a road shoulder after dark and estimating damage to a building exterior after an explosion) that will make a significant positive impact on urban operations.

Phase 1 of the URGENT program is developing techniques for the rapid exploitation of EO and LIDAR sensor data at the city scale to recognize urban objects down to the soldier scale. URGENT is applying image processing technology to geospatially registered 2D/3D data collected from airborne and terrestrial sources, yielding precise annotations for the objects in an urban area.

Phase 2 of the URGENT program will develop a 3D reasoning engine to query over object shapes, locations, and classifications for rapid urban mission planning, mission rehearsal, and situation analysis. Phase 3 will focus on the integration and transition of the URGENT system to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).

• DSO Programs
  
• IPTO Programs
  
• IXO Programs
  
• MTO Programs
  
• STO Programs
  
• TTO Programs
  

with cool desert races

Meanwhile, they have moved to an urban environment, probably in order to in the future avoid getting in black...err...hot water.

CC.

Imagine if someone decided to design an open source cruise missile. ... DIY cruise missile

That guy was developing something that some strategic intel people have been expecting for years - a simple V1-like UAV, but with modern guidance.

The V1 of WWII was a very simple device, built cheaply out of sheet metal with a crude engine. Range of several hundred miles. Moderately reliable airframe. But the guidance systems of that era had trouble finding London, and hitting a specific military target was hopeless. The same airframe with modern guidance could hit specific buildings. It could become the Third World's answer to US bombing strikes - the AK-47 of air warfare. So far, no one has bothered.

You give the engineers too much credit. Just look at things like the DARPA challenge

We can't even get a car to DRIVE across habitable terrain... how in bloody hell do you think we can engineer a robot to crawl subterrainian caverns and search for life?

Perhaps even something like an x-prize for robotics...

Well, there are a few such competitions, but more for serious stuff like search and rescue, and firefighting than for simple household chores. After all, there are already cheap, mass production robots and automated machines for vacuuming, mowing lawns, making coffee, doing dishes, etc.

Someone at the DoD needs to hire slightly less movies and think more about how old fashioned "hearts and minds" would be a better thing to pour money into. Fancy stuff like decent hospitals wouldn't go amiss either. I know its only a white-paper request but wouldn't it be great to see more of these blue-sky research things focused on the non-killing or spying part of "Defence"

I also like the timescales from the request
Posted Date: Mar 23, 2007
Original Response Date: Feb 14, 2008
Current Response Date: Jul 02, 2007

So first off they expected it to take a year, now its just a 4 month thing.

I figured I'd check out the source behind the source and visit the DARPA web site. I got curious and decided to check out their latest budget estimate. What a peach! The "overview" looks like mainframe printout, which of course spills onto a second page (where you'd find the total DARPA budget of $3.3 Billion for FY07. The details that follow (interrupted by a couple of marketing pages on the theme "ExpectMore.gov") make it pretty difficult to connect the dots -- and of course these are just the unclassified dots. Starting from the top budget line on bureaucratic formatted stationery, the details break down the line items, but the detail lines themselves are all found on separate pages, with text explanation in between. I guess they could have made it harder to interpret, but it would take some creative thinking to do so.

I figured I'd check out the source behind the source and visit the DARPA web site. I got curious and decided to check out their latest budget estimate. What a peach! The "overview" looks like mainframe printout, which of course spills onto a second page (where you'd find the total DARPA budget of $3.3 Billion for FY07. The details that follow (interrupted by a couple of marketing pages on the theme "ExpectMore.gov") make it pretty difficult to connect the dots -- and of course these are just the unclassified dots. Starting from the top budget line on bureaucratic formatted stationery, the details break down the line items, but the detail lines themselves are all found on separate pages, with text explanation in between. I guess they could have made it harder to interpret, but it would take some creative thinking to do so.

Here's a LOT of stuff to look through....don't tell anyone ;-)

Top Secret Stuff at DARPA. [DARPA]

It is also certain that any such weapon is going to be used for torture and/or "prisoner control".

Yes, and it is certain that DVDFabDecrypter is used for purposes of copyright infringement. Shall we ban it?

It's still lighter, less complicated, and less expensive than a soldier.

It is too heavy for a soldier to carry and with the batteries probably has a range of a couple miles and a top speed of 5mph tops.

There are solutions to the weight carrying problem.

As for the issue of range and runtime, are you just talking out of your ass or did you find some specs? Even hobbyists are making tracked vehicles with more speed than that. Range is a larger issue but the robot is not intended to do all that much moving around, either.

If you've ever had to handle a treaded robot in real life (I have) you would know how silly the notion of a device like this seeing wide deployment really is.

I would assume that for the moment it will only be used by special forces in rare occasions, and the technology will be developed further to be useful in more situations.

I think it's very likely that the military will order them to, as they will want to justify the money they spent on it.

Which will last until about the 10th time a sniper runs off and resets while the squad is busy fussing with this stupid robot.

Others have commented about how what we're seeing in Iraq is a lot of people holed up long-term in the same location because it works. If this device is better than humans at detecting where a sound is coming from, which is not hard to imagine really, then it may in fact be very useful.

My post posited that it was likely the robot couldn't detect snipers accurately unless the snipers were shooting directly at the robot.

Why would that be true? There's no evidence to suggest that it is and if a human can tell approximately where a shooter is in most situations without them firing directly at them - which they can - then the robot should in theory be able to do an even better job because it deals with metrics and absolutely quantifiable values.

It's worth noting that Sun's Fortress project was not selected for Phase III of DARPA's HPCS project. (And for good measure, a link to a blog at Sun and an FAQ on how Fortress relates to the other HPCS languages/projects.)

It's worth noting that Sun's Fortress project was not selected for Phase III of DARPA's HPCS project. (And for good measure, a link to a blog at Sun and an FAQ on how Fortress relates to the other HPCS languages/projects.)

BTW - does anyone make a wristwatch that syncs to a time source (cell net or whatever)?

There are so-called 'atomic' wristwatches, but they should be called 'radio-controlled' watches - they listen for a time-synchronization beacon from an atomic clock in Colorado and set themselves. The radio signal covers most of the US and Canada, and there are a few other time signal stations around the planet (although they may or may not work with specific watches)

If I were a contestant, I would make sure my vehicle stays out of the way of Oshkosh Truck's entry! http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/Teams/Track_A_ Teams/TeamOshkoshTruck.asp

It was DARPA's idea. DARPA's annual budget is $3e9 (check out the 7th page), and the few million they spent on the Grand Challenges was IME some of the best money they have ever spent. Why make it harder to repeat success?

DARPA currently has a program called "Revolutionizing Prosthetics" http://www.darpa.mil/dso/thrust/biosci/revprost.ht m which is intended to create a brain machine interface to a prosthetic limb controllable on 23 different axes simultaneously with both efferent and afferent information to and from the limb to the brain (tactile sensation) all by 2010.

Sounds kind of like DARPA's Information Processing Technology Office's GALE Program:

" The goal of the GALE (Global Autonomous Language Exploitation) program is to develop and apply computer software technologies to absorb, analyze and interpret huge volumes of speech and text in multiple languages, eliminating the need for linguists and analysts and automatically providing relevant, distilled actionable information to military command and personnel in a timely fashion. Automatic processing "engines" will convert and distill the data, delivering pertinent, consolidated information in easy-to-understand forms to military personnel and monolingual English-speaking analysts in response to direct or implicit requests."

The next step is an automated Counter Fire System. Fire a gun, and within seconds, you're taking heavy fire.

The U.S. Army has had that for almost two decades with the Fire Finder radar system, but that's for heavy artillery. Now DARPA is downsizing the technology to the counter-sniper level.

I though i read this a while ago on /. but maybe not. It's a DARPA project that uses wireless technology in anti-tank mines to "fix" themselves once breached. http://www.darpa.mil/ATO/programs/SHM/htmldemo.htm l

The government will just strong arm (threaten) the university into turning it over to them

According to the article it's funded by DARPA. You know, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The people who really invented the internet? Part of the Department of Defense? I don't think they'll need to do anything to force them to turn it over... It's already theirs.

But first can I say: holy crap! I was one of the main software engineers on this project (heck I still have the source code on my laptop) but that was like 5 years ago. NOW we get slashdotted?

Yeah, I read about this in The Register about 3 years ago. And on the DARPA site, there's a timeline

Program Milestones
Spring 2003 Planned Completion of Phase II - Enhanced subsystem performance and 50-plus prototype minefield operational testing and demonstration. System technology transition to the U.S. Army.

Spring 2002 Completion of Phase I - Enabling technology development and small-scale prototype minefield testing.

Spring 2000 Self-Healing Minefield system development contracts awarded.

June 1999 Self-Healing Minefield BAA99-21 released.

June 1998 DARPA Track II Task Force briefed Deputy Secretary of Defense on Self- Healing Minefield as Track II alternative.

October 1997 Deputy Secretary of Defense directs DARPA to execute Antipersonnel Landmine Alternative Track II study.

So it looks like this page (and project?) has been inactive since about 2002. So much for the breathless Slashdot summary "New landmines will soon communicate via a radio network." Right. Real Soon Now.

This is the link
http://www.darpa.mil/ato/programs/SHM/briefings/Fu tureLandmineSystems.pdf

And it's on page 8, that these mines self destruct after 30 days unless told to re-extend their period.

Wouldn't you hate to be the guy who forgot to reset all the mines...

The five year thing is hilarious. I read the title of this and laughed since I'd read this on darpa.mil some time ago and would never have thought to post it here. If this old thing is 'news', than I'd say that every one of these projects must count.

These fucking mines HOP.
I swear I use the same things in Half-Life 2.

from the site though, the best part has to be:

Technical Support for your hopping mines!

I really want to know what happens when they run out of power though?

Are they inert or do they revert to a dangerous stepper?
The inert option would seem the best since they can be tended to for the duration of the war then afterwards no children will lose their legs or anything.

Big mistake. Arpanet was DEFINITELY not the Internet. The entire purpose of DARPA is to learn more efficient ways of killing people and destroying their property. The U.S. government is dominated by people who make a huge profit from "defense"-related sales (like the Bush family and Dick Cheney); they have helped make killing people the U.S. government's primary way of relating to situations it doesn't like.

Eventually, some universities and defense-related companies (like Tektronix) were allowed access to Arpanet. There were MANY people at the time, maybe most of the users, who were extremely opposed to making the Inter-network open to everyone.

Al Gore decided that the Inter-network should become a public utility, and provided the funding to make that happen. Vint Cerf says that it is doubtful that would have happened, at least when it did, without Al Gore's understanding and support.

Without people like Al Gore, Slashdot would be a BBS.

The summary makes it sound like prosthetics fused to the bone and controlled by the nervous impulses are here, but they certainly are not yet.

Neither are they necessarily as distant as you might make it sound.

Don't get to excited yet people, prosthetics like the summary imagines are still a long ways off.

In terms of technological development, I do not perceive a few years as being a "long way off". There is a great deal of work, and funding dollars, being put into neural prostheses and direct brain interfaces, and significant advances are being made. It is not entirely unreasonable to suggest that devices like those described in the article might be realized within this decade. The DARPA program certainly is optimistic. Admittedly, I have not the experience to judge when this technology might become available to those in need (following clinical trials, product development, etc.), but it is my opinion that it is assured within the lifetime of most disabled veterans of the current war(s).

http://www.darpa.mil/

Though the theory is nothing new... http://www.darpa.mil/dso/thrust/matdev/metamat.htm

Here's the actual program site... http://www.darpa.mil/dso/thrust/matdev/metamateria ls/index.html

This is probably the most helpful... http://www.darpa.mil/dso/thrust/matdev/metamateria ls/metamaterials_overview.pdf

Boeing for one has been looking at this technology for its development in cloaked planes etc.

Though the theory is nothing new... http://www.darpa.mil/dso/thrust/matdev/metamat.htm

Here's the actual program site... http://www.darpa.mil/dso/thrust/matdev/metamateria ls/index.html

This is probably the most helpful... http://www.darpa.mil/dso/thrust/matdev/metamateria ls/metamaterials_overview.pdf

Boeing for one has been looking at this technology for its development in cloaked planes etc.

Though the theory is nothing new... http://www.darpa.mil/dso/thrust/matdev/metamat.htm

Here's the actual program site... http://www.darpa.mil/dso/thrust/matdev/metamateria ls/index.html

This is probably the most helpful... http://www.darpa.mil/dso/thrust/matdev/metamateria ls/metamaterials_overview.pdf

Boeing for one has been looking at this technology for its development in cloaked planes etc.

It strikes me as odd that we have a government agency devoted solely to pay other people to make their own sci-fi wet-dreams become reality. From what I've read in the news, there is nothing new or innovative about DARPA. It manages and directs selected basic and applied research and development projects. So... you pay other people to make the stuff you saw in Spiderman 2. I think that such projects create a great opportunity for colleges and universities, but I don't really understand the principle of "a complete acceptance of failure if the payoff of success [is] high enough" to use insects to do our spying for us. DARPA was created to keep the U.S. on the cutting-edge of technology, but they appear to be off the deep-end of technology instead.

Faked?
Here is his bio...

You probably wouldn't believe that General Lance Lord is the head of Space Command!

*"Space Command" must always be followed by an exclamation point*

• Quantum Computing
• Infrared Focal Plane Array/Uncooled Integrated Sensors
• Advanced Lithography
• Most of the Other Links

• Quantum Computing
• Infrared Focal Plane Array/Uncooled Integrated Sensors
• Advanced Lithography
• Most of the Other Links

• Quantum Computing
• Infrared Focal Plane Array/Uncooled Integrated Sensors
• Advanced Lithography
• Most of the Other Links

• Quantum Computing
• Infrared Focal Plane Array/Uncooled Integrated Sensors
• Advanced Lithography
• Most of the Other Links

• Quantum Computing
• Infrared Focal Plane Array/Uncooled Integrated Sensors
• Advanced Lithography
• Most of the Other Links

• Quantum Computing
• Infrared Focal Plane Array/Uncooled Integrated Sensors
• Advanced Lithography
• Most of the Other Links

America's recent dismal showing in the ACM Programming finals may be more than just a bad year

Duke sends a bunch of ill-prepared, second stringers to a programming competition, gets crushed, and I am supposed to worry about the decline of CS? I think an A teams from one of many elite US institutions would do better. I also would like to remind people of some outstanding recent domestic achievements. Maybe things aren't that bad.

I am wondering how much of this technology is adapted from technology created for the DARPA Grand challenge? There are some interesting connections there, notable the involvement of Carnegie Mellon University. They didn't win the DARPA challenge, but they seemed to be the favorites from the outset, and took second and third place. I know that they are known for their robotics department, but did they work with DARPA as a result of thier participation in the Grand Challenge? Anyone have any insight on this?