Autonomous Robots' Desert Race

celady writes: "From KurzweilAI.net, apparently DARPA, the main research and development center for the department of defense, is going to fund an all-terrain robot race . The robots will race from Los Angeles to Las Vegas completely without human intervention. This could prove useful in the battlefield someday. DARPA really has some interesting projects going on. This one is BORING compared to the Vortex Combustor and the Chip-Size Atomic Clock. Watch the DARPA site for updates."

Comments

no biggie

[Nobley]

This may have been an exciting challenge to watch before GPS came to be comonplace, but with the aid of GPS such a challenge seems a little routine to me, perhaps some entrant will choose to be suprisingly creative however and entertain us all.

Re:no biggie

[qedigital]

Granted, GPS would be an integral component of mapping and directional navigation. However, a competiting robot would have to dynamically respond to its surroundings (other robots, terrain, unforeseen obstacles) as well as be capable of tasks such as refueling (as the article suggests).

The challenge presented by this competition is enormous. The combination of speed, AI, ruggedness, and endurance is exciting as it hasn't really been seen outside military applications.

It's also great to see that some real money is likely to be fronted and should therefore attract some high-profile organizations as well as some interesting ideas. Competitions are one of the best ways to promote development by outlining clear goals, bringing like-minded people together to exchange ideas, and gain public media support for often obscure topics.

Wierd

[Anonymous Coward]

in 48 hours we get:

Autonomous submarine competition.

Autonomous race car competition, funded by the National Semiconductors.

Autonomous hostess/conventiongoing robot in competition.

CMU buying land to test variable-terrain navigating robots.

And now another autonomous race car competition, but this one variable-terrain and funded by DARPA.

Is it robot day or something?

AI Si, People No???

[DrewK]

There used to be an annual race like this that ended in 1989 I believe when parts of the area became National Park. So the Machines already have more rights than us Citizens?

A Million Dollars....

[ispepalocacoc]

Offering a million dollars is one way to encourage people to make scientific advancements, but that will never compare to a global disaster.

If for some reason Earth was going to become uninhabitable scientists would have us living on the moon in no time.

Autonomous Multi-Tasking

[Kaz Riprock]

Now...imagine if one robot was built to race down the streets of San Francisco to the harbor where it transforms into a submarine to dive to LA where it jumps to all-terrain mode to roll on to Vegas. It then has the sociability to roll into the casino and receive its award without bumping into the race officials.

Now that would be a cool slashdot story...

...Oh, and it's gotta be able to beat Toro in Battlebots on Treasure Island on its way home.

Make it Fly

[msheppard]

Build a RC plane (they have these)
Hook up a GPS (they have these)
Hook up the gyro controlled auto pilot (they have these, yes, for RC planes)
Punch in the Co-Ords, and launch it.

I guess maybe solar powered electric might be best so you don't have to carry around a lot of feul.

M@

CMU Robotics

[imadork]

When I was at CMU I knew a few people in the Robotics department. I know that at the time they were working on the problem of how to get a computer to drive a car by itself. AI, Machine vision, recognizing the lines painted on the road -- all that good stuff. I know that they ran all sorts of experiments with computers driving actual cars, but with human drivers as a backup.

I heard a story while I was there (that was never really confirmed) that on one trip, they decided to ditch the human driver in the car, and see how well the machine could do on its own. (They followed behind it in another car, IIRC, and probably had some remote-control apparatus as well, I'd imagine.) They got from Pittsburgh to just outside DC, at which point a Virginia Cop pulled the car over -- only because it didn't have a driver!

Can anyone currently at CMU confirm whether this is true? I've always wondered about that.

off-road? What about on-ground?

[Andy Dodd]

Does it have to be a ground/water-only robot?

If it can fly, everything becomes simple.

One person already pointed out combining a GPS with an R/C plane - Maybe that would work, although there's the issue of landing - The "finish line" may not have room allow a glide-in landing.

Put a GPS and a computer in a chopper, though... Someone had a link to an open-source helicopter autopilot project a few robotics articles ago.