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Look this is supposed to come online in what... fifteen to twenty years? By that time, ''soldiers'' will be sitting in Pods in Idaho, controlling swarms of robots walking around Iraq (Yes, they US will probably still be there ...) The concept of putting humans in dangerous situations will be as alien as putting humans inside a nuclear reactor is today.

We've got robots driving themselves ( http://www.grandchallenge.org/ ) and many, many robots that are starting to walk effectively, and simultaneous translation is coming along... There will be things that look like ceylons, walking around, and when something interesting happens, a human will start looking at what it sees... There is little point in developing next generation battlefield kit for humans. Our destiny is to be civilians. The soldier will cease to exist, and the supervision might be outsourced from Idaho to pods in India at 1$/hour.

That can be good, for folks who want to control large populations like in iraq with little risk.
It's just as convenient for small oligarchies to control large populations, such as in Russia, Burma, China, etc... The demand will be so great that initially high costs will come down rapidly.

It's kind of an inevitable result of current developments. The main question is what non-oligarchs should be doing it about it...

I worked on the Navlab project project at Carnegie-Mellon in the 1980s. The project built several a robotic cars, aided by vision systems and other specialized sensors, that could distinguish the road from other features, and drive. Top speed was less than 20 miles/hour in the 1980s. In the 1990s, these systems achieved speeds of 90 mph on the interstate, and only required the equivalent of a Pentium 150 in the trunk of the car (along with good sensors).

Technology from the same university has performed well in the DARPA grand challenge. http://www.grandchallenge.org/

Robots don't hog the left lane driving 50 miles per hour, talking on their cell phone. Human still need to pay attention, since there are always situations where the automated systems get into trouble.

Check out http://www.cs.cmu.edu.nyud.net:8090/afs/cs/project /alv/www/ and http://www.assistware.com.nyud.net:8090/ for details

Incorrect. According to the website (http://www.grandchallenge.org/), the course was designed to include obstacles that had to be avoided. If I remember correctly, the obstacles included tank crosses, beams and poles, and a couple of vehicles actually got hung up on them. There was a corridor, but it was not possible to finish the course by simply relying on GPS and keeping within the middle of the road. Finally, the tunnel prevented the use of GPS.

In short, the Grand Challenge was indeed a grand challenge in that it incorporated all aspects of autonomous driving (save the road rage).

Looking at the final stats on the Grand Challenge website, it would seem that only five teams, out of the 23 that made the finals, were able to finish the course. The team that got the farthest before calling it quits managed about 80 miles, which means that the cut between those who made it and those who didn't was still pretty big. Another interesting thing about the final results is that, if you look at the pretty red and blue graph lines, they describe what looks like a sort of decaying function...

Or perhaps I'm just a dork.

DARPA Grand Challange - Harnessing American Ingenuity ... as it turns out, the leader of the winning Stanford car team is a German.

First to finish isn't the winner since they don't all start at the same time.

Right now, the results are:

Red Team - 7h 55m - complete
Stanford Racing Team - 7h 58m - complete
Red Team Too - 8h 3m - complete

Still a few left but it looks like the Red Team 'won'. It's amazing that all 3 finishers were so close in time to complete. Just refreshed after preview and the times all shifted by a few minutes so results may vary.

see http://www.grandchallenge.org/

Actually they have finished first, but the race isn't over. There's a ticker on the official site: "The first car to finish is NOT necessarily the winner".

From the darpa site http://www.grandchallenge.org/ it appears that the Stanford team's entry "Stanley" has complete the entire course in 7h28m. Although I cant seem to find anyone posting anything about it yet.

Err, no. They just finished with a time of 7h 28m. Maybe you mistoke the 125 mile line on the status board on http://www.grandchallenge.org/ for the finish?

Here are the close up sattalite pictures from google maps of all the waypoints on the route information section of the darpa site.
Grand Challenge
2004 DEG Milestone, waypoint a
Railroad overpass, waypoint b
Lucy Gray Mountains, waypoint c
Roach Lake, waypoint d
Sheep Mountain, waypoint e
Jean Lake, waypoint f
Railroad underpass, waypoint g
northern tunnel, waypoint h
Southern tunnel, waypoint i
jean, waypoint j
Beer Bottle Pass, waypoint k

Here:
DARPA Grand Challenge 2005

There is a map updated almost every minute automatically that will show you the position of all the teams and the times elapsed for each, etc. At the time of this post, Red Team Too, Stanford, and Read Team are all doing well, at 94+ miles each. Surprisingly, most of the teams are still in the running (that is, not eliminated). It is hard to compare one team to another however, because each team starts at a different time and perhaps the ones that are far behind are in the hardest part of the course and are thus moving slowly.

Can someone combine Google Maps with the XML here: http://www.grandchallenge.org/data/location.xml

If you're wondering what the DARPA Challenge is, you have to scroll to the bottom the their flash website:

"The DARPA Grand Challenge is an unprecedented government effort to accelerate research and development in autonomous ground vehicles to help save American lives on the battlefield. DARPA will award $2 million to the autonomous (robotic) ground vehicle that can successfully navigate a challenging desert course of approximately 150 miles the fastest (in less than 10 hours). The vehicles must find and follow a prescribed course route, avoid obstacles, and negotiate turns, all while travelling at militarily-relevant rates of speed. The ground vehicles are fully autonomous - not remote-controlled."

Video coverage here (there's a whole bunch. The overview, stanley and ghostrider ones are awesome!):

http://www.cartv.com.nyud.net:8090/content/researc h/channels/index.cfm/channel/cartv_video/action/sh owvideo/vid/e_0145/vcat/Event/
NQE final paper:

http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/NQEfinal1.pdf

And more announcements can be found on:

http://www.grandchallenge.org/

Also, a good summary of things that have been happening can be found in the discussion forum:

https://dtsn.darpa.mil/grandc/forum/topic.asp?topi c_id=1636&forum_id=30&Topic_Title=NQE&forum_title= Grand+Challenge+Event&M=False&S=

=====
A post by Espina reads:
Hi! ...stopped by the NQE last week and this whole Tuesday and I must say that all the work accomplished on all the AGVs was very impressive. ...for those who couldn't be there the following bots all had runs in the morning session: "Mojavaton, DAD, CIMAR, Insight Racing, Golem Group, ENSCO, Princeton, MonsterMoto, Team Jefferson, UCF,, AION, Cajunbot, Banzai, Gray Team, Mitre Meteorites, Virginia Tech Grand Challenge Team, Austin Robot, Desert Buckeyes." All had full runs except five. Majavaton and Insight Racing which both collided with a vehicle/obstacle within 100 yards of the finish line. Aion decided to skip the course and circle back directly to the finish line but a K- rail barrier refused to co-operate. The UCF bot went walkabout on the back 40 towards the NASCAR track and Austin Robotics got sulky in the first loop when the crowd left for lunch during its run. MonsterMoto was given a restart because a chase truck encroached on the route near the start. ...according to some team members from Ensco, the afternoon session was a chance for the teams "on the cusp" to improve their standings. Austin Robotics, CajunBot, VT, Team Banzai, Mojavaton, the Mitre Group, and the Gray Team all had additional runs. ...Mojavaton, VT, Mitre (had two) and the Gray Team all had full runs. The Gray Team had two runs but was unable to to get GPS back after the tunnel on the first run so they made a few adjustments and had a stellar 2nd run. It seemed like a time/constelation problem. CajunBot made it to the last Obstacle/vehicle to the chagrin of the crowd. Team Banzai froze contemplating a witch's hat on a downhill transition at the end of the first loop and Austin Robotics lost GPS (and its way) after the tunnel... ...after that the best of the rest ran (Autonosys, Blue Team, Overbot, Indiana Robotic NAV, BJB Engineering, Team Juggernaut, Autonomous Vehicle Systems, Team Tormenta, Indy Robot Racing, Terra Engineering, PVHA Road Warriors, CyberRider, AI Motorvators, Team Underdawg. )with most of the teams wiping out the first barrier, and/or re-arranging the hay bales at the tunnel entrance, colliding with the tunnel entrance and losing GPS after the tunnel. However, IT, from AI motorvaters had a full run on the shortened RDDF and TerraHawk made it thru most of the hard parts. Overbot ran very thoroughly and cautiously but froze on the downhill transition. ...if any of this information is incorrect please feel free to fix...I could be suffering the effects of sunstroke... ...anyhow, good luck all and I admire dedication of all of the teams on completing an AGV. ...see y'all in Primm, Espina

Why do people like to use Flash (on http://www.grandchallenge.org/) to communicate textual information? I find that highly annoying and difficult to use.

I know my money is on Austin Robot Technology. Vehicle "(Not Available)" sounds like it'll be a real winner. lol!

-robyn

Why is it that when I click on the link (titled: www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge) at the bottom of the page at http://www.grandchallenge.org/media.html I get a "page not found" error?

Is it incompetence on the part of the creator of that page or is it because I'm surfing from outside the USA and DARPA figure it's not a good idea for potential terrorists to see what's going on with this challenge? :-)

Plus, they happen to be a huge supporter of scientific research and development...let's not be too quick to insult one of the few remaining patrons of science.

Indeed. While it is to some people, a challenge to work for the government/military, it is Never to be viewed in the case of you, the potential worker or in this case *Researcher* not knowing what you get when you go into the job or *Experiment*.

From the Darpa Grand Challenge Website

DARPA is the central research and development organization for the Department of Defense (DoD). The Agency manages and directs basic and applied research and development projects for DoD, and pursues research and technology where the risk and payoff are both very high and where success may provide dramatic advances for traditional military roles and missions. Congress authorized DARPA to award cash prizes as a means of recognizing outstanding achievements in Defense-related research and development.

Are non-American citizens allowed to participate? I tried looking at the Rules Page but it's not up yet. I don't recall if there was a stipulation which restricted participants to American citizens.

Given DARPA's great R&D track record in the past (Internet and what not), I would've liked to participate in the contest *purely* from a scientific curiousity point of view - and I bet a lot of nerds all over the world would like to overlook the fact that the contest is sponsored by a military agency (prize not withstanding - since it's US taxpayer money). Just as long as DARPA lives up to it's name and does not morph into OARPA - it's happened way too many times in the past.

Incidentally, the link to the official page is incorrect on that page. The site linked to in the article seems to be just a mirror of the darpa.mil site, however.

Instead of wasting my tax dollars on terabyte upon terabyte of bandwidth, they should have used BitTorrent to distribute these files; that's what it's designed for! Then, the money they save on bandwidth (by shifting it to my normally UNUSED and "unlimited" bandwidth) can be used more productively.

And don't give me the line about bittorrent being "hard" to setup, because 1) it's not, and 2) the type of people downloading these videos are slightly more technically inclined than Joe Average anyway.

--

Oh, yeah from here: http://www.grandchallenge.org/gallery/news/final_d ata.pdf

Come on, geeks at the beach? Wouldn't the sun hurt our pale complexions?

Everybody knows all the real geeks are still in the desert trying to get their robots to go a few more miles.

The preliminary results have been posted on the day 6 media gallery. Since it is a word document I'l post it in full.

Preliminary Data from DARPA Grand Challenge
As of 11:00 a.m. PST, March 13, 2004

Vehicle 22 - Red Team - At mile 7.4. Vehicle went off course, got caught on an obstacle and rubber on the front wheels caught fire, which was quickly extinguished. Vehicle has been disabled.

Vehicle 21- SciAutonicsII - At mile 6.7. Vehicle went into an embankment and became stuck. Vehicle has been disabled, and the team is recovering it.

Vehicle 5 - Team Caltech - At mile 1.3. Vehicle went through a fence, and couldn't come back through. Vehicle has been disabled, and the team is recovering it.

Vehicle 7 - Digital Auto Drive - At mile 6.0. Vehicle was paused to allow a wrecker to get through, and, upon restarting, sensors were not able to determine the proper route. After sensors tried unsuccessfully for three hours, vehicle was disabled.

Vehicle 25 - Virginia Tech - Vehicle brakes locked up in the start area. Vehicle has been removed from the course.

Vehicle 23 - Axion Racing - Vehicle circled the wrong way in the start area. Vehicle has been removed from the course.

Vehicle 2 - Team CajunBot - Vehicle brushed a wall on its way out of the chute. Vehicle has been removed from the course.

Vehicle 13 - Team ENSCO - Vehicle flipped in the start area, experienced a fuel leak, and the team needed to shut off the fuel. Vehicle has been removed from the course.

Vehicle 4 - Team CIMAR - At mile 0.45. Vehicle ran into some wire and got totally wrapped up in it. Vehicle has been disabled.

Vehicle 10 - Palos Verdes High School Road Warriors - Vehicle has been removed from the course - it hit a wall in the start area.

Vehicle 17 - SciAutonics I - At mile 0.75. Vehicle went off the route. After sensors tried unsuccessfully for 90 minutes to reacquire the route, without any movement, vehicle was disabled.

Vehicle 20 - Team TerraMax - Got to mile 1.2. Vehicle then started backing up and after .5 miles, the vehicle was disabled.

Vehicle 15 - Team TerraHawk - Withdrew prior to start.

Vehicle 9 - The Golem Group - At mile 5.2. Vehicle stopped. Vehicle had a throttle problem while going up a hill. After trying for 50 minutes, the vehicle was disabled.

Vehicle 16 - The Blue Team - Withdrew prior to start.

According to this all the teams are now disabled. What a poor showing. Too bad.

I don't have access to the DARPA feed, but according to the Status Board all entrants have either been marked as Disabled or Withdrawn. Unless the rules allow teams to repair disabled vehicles in the field (making them less than truly autonomous) it appears that the much-hyped Grand Challenge has been a total wash.

Hmmmm.... Funny stuff on the Status board.

SciAutonics II is marked as Disabled, but keeps moving......

So far, it is in the lead.

Info

Updated on the live status board A bit short of the original 250miles.

According to this 3d map (updated every 30 seconds) the Caltech Bot is running since a 30 minutes or so

Hmm, I don't know how you got that information, but their status page indicates that no-one has started, as of yet (5:10am in Barstow). The race is supposed to start at 6:30am, so that would make sense.

Maybe they had some incorrect data initially. Anyways, this slightly 'lighter' page shows the status.

btw, P4-2GHz also at 100% / 125MB RAM

And what about the official 3d tracking (macromedia 3d shockwave app, looks great)?
It uses about 150 MB RAM and 100% CPU on my celeron 1.4 GHZ...
According to this 3d map (updated every 30 seconds) the Caltech Bot is running since a 30 minutes or so. But I couldn't observe any movement...
As a side note: The videos on tomshardware are not exactly the same as those from the official website (very long ones, only the last 2 show vehicles that master the qualification without longer pauses).
The videos from tomshardware are much shorter, a lot less boring ;) and show the autonomous vehicles going havoc :)

This is the list of all qualified teams (from the new .pdf):

1. (22) Red Team - Pittsburgh, PA
2. (21) SciAutonics II - Thousand Oaks, CA
3. (05) Team Caltech - Pasadena, CA
4. (07) Digital Auto Drive (DAD) - Morgan Hill, CA
5. (25) Virginia Tech - Blacksburg, VA
6. (23) Axion Racing - Westlake Village, CA
7. (02) Team CajunBot - Lafayette, LA
8. (13) Team ENSCO - Falls Church, VA
9. (04) Team CIMAR - Gainesville, FL and Logan, UT
10. (10) Palos Verdes High School RoadWarriors - Palos Verdes Estates, CA
11. (17) SciAutonics I - Thousand Oaks, CA
12. (20) Team TerraMax - Oshkosh, WI
13. (15) Team TerraHawk - Gardena, CA
14. (09) The Golem Group - Santa Monica, CA
15. (16) The Blue Team - Berkeley, CA

And what about the official 3d tracking (macromedia 3d shockwave app, looks great)?
It uses about 150 MB RAM and 100% CPU on my celeron 1.4 GHZ...
According to this 3d map (updated every 30 seconds) the Caltech Bot is running since a 30 minutes or so. But I couldn't observe any movement...
As a side note: The videos on tomshardware are not exactly the same as those from the official website (very long ones, only the last 2 show vehicles that master the qualification without longer pauses).
The videos from tomshardware are much shorter, a lot less boring ;) and show the autonomous vehicles going havoc :)

This is the list of all qualified teams (from the new .pdf):

1. (22) Red Team - Pittsburgh, PA
2. (21) SciAutonics II - Thousand Oaks, CA
3. (05) Team Caltech - Pasadena, CA
4. (07) Digital Auto Drive (DAD) - Morgan Hill, CA
5. (25) Virginia Tech - Blacksburg, VA
6. (23) Axion Racing - Westlake Village, CA
7. (02) Team CajunBot - Lafayette, LA
8. (13) Team ENSCO - Falls Church, VA
9. (04) Team CIMAR - Gainesville, FL and Logan, UT
10. (10) Palos Verdes High School RoadWarriors - Palos Verdes Estates, CA
11. (17) SciAutonics I - Thousand Oaks, CA
12. (20) Team TerraMax - Oshkosh, WI
13. (15) Team TerraHawk - Gardena, CA
14. (09) The Golem Group - Santa Monica, CA
15. (16) The Blue Team - Berkeley, CA

And what about the official 3d tracking (macromedia 3d shockwave app, looks great)?
It uses about 150 MB RAM and 100% CPU on my celeron 1.4 GHZ...
According to this 3d map (updated every 30 seconds) the Caltech Bot is running since a 30 minutes or so. But I couldn't observe any movement...
As a side note: The videos on tomshardware are not exactly the same as those from the official website (very long ones, only the last 2 show vehicles that master the qualification without longer pauses).
The videos from tomshardware are much shorter, a lot less boring ;) and show the autonomous vehicles going havoc :)

This is the list of all qualified teams (from the new .pdf):

1. (22) Red Team - Pittsburgh, PA
2. (21) SciAutonics II - Thousand Oaks, CA
3. (05) Team Caltech - Pasadena, CA
4. (07) Digital Auto Drive (DAD) - Morgan Hill, CA
5. (25) Virginia Tech - Blacksburg, VA
6. (23) Axion Racing - Westlake Village, CA
7. (02) Team CajunBot - Lafayette, LA
8. (13) Team ENSCO - Falls Church, VA
9. (04) Team CIMAR - Gainesville, FL and Logan, UT
10. (10) Palos Verdes High School RoadWarriors - Palos Verdes Estates, CA
11. (17) SciAutonics I - Thousand Oaks, CA
12. (20) Team TerraMax - Oshkosh, WI
13. (15) Team TerraHawk - Gardena, CA
14. (09) The Golem Group - Santa Monica, CA
15. (16) The Blue Team - Berkeley, CA

update on the grandchallenge.org website:
1. list of the 15 qualified teams: pdf file (url corrected, the one on the website is broken!
2. live tracking software, downloadable here

update on the grandchallenge.org website:
1. list of the 15 qualified teams: pdf file (url corrected, the one on the website is broken!
2. live tracking software, downloadable here

It's really amazing watching an automotive vehicle going havoc :)
Robot Vehicles Take To The Desert (videos on last page)
Obviously they're trying to do a preemptive strike on the journalists fearing bad publicity!
Still, it's a pity the motocross from the blue team couldn't start properly. But finally, they qualified as most of the other teams when DARPA lowered the terms of qualification.
There are more videos on DARPA's Grand Challenge Gallery
I wonder whether we can expect Number 5 (Short Circuit) to be on the next years list of competitors :)

For those interested in seeing video from the qualifying trials... Some slow lumbering vehicles, (not to mention huge file size), but pretty cool nonetheless.

I think this was the whole idea, DARPA wants to make sure they have some kind of "race" on their hands, not just one team putting along till the end.

Keep in mind that they're doing sequential starts. So it won't really be a race, just a long course with a few vehicles strung out one behind another. Far behind. And lots of disabled vehicles which have been shut down and pushed off the course (those few which even made it out of the starting gate).

DARPA is setting up a live update page where you'll be able to get a map of the course and watch in real time where the vehicles are during the race.

According to this schedule the first vehicle (which will be CMU's Sandstorm) is scheduled to depart at 6:15 AM PST on Saturday.

http://www.grandchallenge.org Run by DARPA.

A virtual view of the DARPA Grand Challenge.

Live Tracking will show relative positions of the Challenge entrants, and requires a 7 MB download each time you use your browser to view the tracking. (Although this is still under construction apparently)

The Status Board provides a 30 second update of the status of each Challenge team.

The Image Gallery will contain the most recent images from the Challenge, updated nightly through March 14.