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Teach A Robot To Drive, Win A Million Bucks
An Anonymous Reader writes "DARPA has released the details of a 'Grand Challenge,' with a $1 million prize. The challenge is to build an autonomous vehicle which can 'navigate on its own over a 250-mile desert course in less than 10 hours.' from L.A. to Vegas, 'without external communication or human control.' The contest is to be conducted in March 2004, and is open to all comers. Can we get at least one entry to represent slashdot?" We've mentioned this contest a few times before: any intended entrants out there want to disclose your secret plans?
If two robot-driven cars got in an accident, how would one determine whose fault the accident was?
The challenge is to build an autonomous vehicle which can 'navigate on its own over a 250-mile desert course in less than 10 hours.' from L.A. to Vegas, 'without external communication or human control.'
:)
Somehow I have the feeling that 99% of the teams competing will try to figure out inventive, creative ways of using and obfuscating 'external communication or human control' as the first step.
Cover your eyes and click this link!
"For example, an extremely large vehicle that simply travels on a straight line between two points by climbing over or breaking through everything in its path (and destroying what cannot support that movement) is not the type of intelligent solution that is sought." - DARPA Site
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Obstacle intimidation algorithms not allowed.
low cost research for DARPA. I'm guessing that the prize money is a tiny fraction of the amount of money DARPA would normally pay for a university research group to accomplish the same task.
The good thing about this approach for the contestants if that they don't have to put up with the endless stream of DARP required reports, meetings, and politics.
But the devil ends up being in the details. While it probably would not be too hard to design a vehicle that could do this in a couples day or so, 250 miles in 10 hours means the vehicle would have to be averageing 25 mph. At 25 mph, there is not a whole lot of room for error. You would need a system that could react to environmental issues that came up very quickly such as obstacles, or dead end routes. You would also need to a system that could actually sense/see far enough ahead to steer the vehicle in the correct direction without running into things.
With no external communication and tracking allowed, these robots will end up... who knows where? Who knows where?
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That's right, who knows where! Be ready as the creators will have 5 hours to scout the desert for their robots before the sandstorm hits (or something)!
Nah, I'm sure the robots will be allowed to shoot a flare or something! Oh wait:
"...a vehicle that clears a path by setting everything in its way on fire, or a vehicle that digs large holes, are unacceptable.
Hmm..
Go ahead and try to find your robot after a sandstorm or something happens, and you have to 1) find it yourself magically 2) dig it up yourself because the robots aren't allowed to.
I hope DARPA go through with this contest, it's the most ingenious waste of taxpayer money ever--it can waste a $1,000,000 OR be the cheapest way to research an awesome design (whoever wins the contest.) I would so watch this on TV.
Cover your eyes and click this link!
RTFA, you half-wit.
Because something can be done doesn't even mean it can be feasible/useful if possible. By example, I'm sure someone could completely fill up a car with electronics and make this work. What they need is to have "design/weight bonus" to the prize. I think this theory is proving very true in the TV industry right now. People just like Plasma TV's because they look cool and takke up a lot less space - it's certainly not for the picture quality that a similar sized high end (cheaper too) rear projection TV can provide. A similar product is the iPod, it's not only the smallest for the most capacity but has great design and great integration. Even Creative's ZenPlayer hasn't gotten the reviews of the iPod.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
The complexities in this problem are enormous so trivialising them is apparently interesting.
Maybe we'll just hook up slashdot to an artificial neural network and spend few hours teaching/programing it to do moderating and throw in a cpu and run a rule based system with a well defined set of rules (for detecting trolls, redundancies, etc.) and we're set. Piece of cake.
Can anybody imagine how much R&D would have to go into even an attempt, much less a successful one? $1 million doesn't even scratch the surface...
--sdem
But, when I was working on the first DARPA ALV (automous land vechicle) project in the 1980s, you really couldn't draw a clear line between DARPA research and research supported by other funding sources, like NSF and NIH.
One of the grad students wrote a parody of a tech report generating program that would create a new tech report given a few key words and the funding agencies. Input like "blob", "identification", "snake", "NIH" would generate a tech report on "Finding blob shape tumours using snakes" - change "NIH" to "DARPA" and the title would be "Finding blob shaped targets in side looking radar".
The overlap between ideas for miilitary applications, and non-military applications, was so extensive that you couldn't untangle them. One research student was determined not to accept military funding, and didn't, Stiill, I was in the tech report room the day the DARPA tech officer came to get a few reports, and he made a point of selecting reports by that graduate student. "Great work, gotta follow it" was his line.
So, while I fully accept and respect personal decisions not to accept military funding, any open work to advance autonomous robots will end up in weapons. That's a consequence of the research area, not the funding source. Those in this area have to enter it with no pretenses.
G.N. Hardy, in his great memoir, "Apologies of a Mathematican", proudly stated that he never worked on a military project even during the time before and during WWII. C.P. Snow, in his preface to that book, noted that while Hardy never worked on such a project, he trained all the (Cambridge?) mathematicans in the British service. Science is the ultimate open source endeavor.
You're just looking at the problem all wrong.
You're not providing the guidance so the missle kills someone, you're providing the guidance so the missle DOESN'T kill all the doctors and patients in the hospital next door to the target.
paintball
Lemme guess, you'd also like to slam DARPA for builing that blasted ARPAnet? I mean, what good ever came of that?
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
People have been working on "smart cars" for decades, thowing every technique you mention (and quite a few more) at the problem, and I don't think we're close to having a robot car that could be trusted to drive unsupervised in real traffic...
However, feel free to prove me wrong by winning the contest!
Actually, they're probably interested in the technology for Boeing's Stryker vehicles (sorta next generation Bradleys), which are just coming into use. One of the proposed Stryker models is an autonomous version that could work either with other robotic Strykers, or in combination with humans.
Personally, I think this is a great idea. Roboticization of warfare can only be a good thing. When you can trade 10 expendable robots for 1 enemy soldier, you can be a lot more careful about what you shoot at, and reduce civilian casualties.
The problem with anti-war nuts is that they fail to consider the costs of the alternatives. Precision guided weapons have lead to much lower losses of life than in past wars. Back in the day, nobody thought much if a B-52 dropping 500 bombs on a military target happened to wipe out an adjacent village.
If a Field Judge is unable to continue in the Safety Vehicle, and that inability is of a temporary nature expected to take less than ten minutes to resolve, the Field Judge shall instruct the Safety Vehicle driver to stop, and shall record the time of stopping so that the time stopped may be subtracted from the elapsed time for the team.
Perhaps that should read:
If a Field Judge needs to take a leak, then teams must stop when asked. Team members, on the other hand, are expected to be able to control their bladders.
I am artificially intelligent.
I was reading the rules, and finally found just the loophole needed to win! The rules state
Participants while on the Route shall render all possible assistance to any another Participant on the same or other Team who has been injured and requires medical attention. Failure to do so shall be disqualifying.
Obviously, the solution is to go around to all the other teams, claiming to be stung in the fanny by a scorpion. When they refuse to suck out the poision, have them disqualified. (You have less than 6 hours to do this). Now, you might *actually* have to get stung in the fanny by a scorpion to make this work, but I'd take that risk for a cool million bucks!
The heavier the vehicle is the more kinetic energy it has so the more problems you have negotiating obstacles. Furthermore, the heavier it is the more likelihood that it will damage itself in collisions or rollovers. Also, the heavier the vehicle is, the more energy it will consume, so the more fuel it needs to carry, so the heavier it is...
The solution to this problem, from a chasis point of view, is to build the lightest machine possible consistent with carrying a laptop computer, two video cameras and a small radar. If I were building it I'd aim for a lightweight carbon-fibre moncoque shell with a generally curved shape; large, lightweight wheels like mountain bike wheels; a small air-cooled four-stroke engine - say 100 to 250cc; a cone type continuously variable transmission; and a robot wars style self righting mechanism. I'd aim for at least 100 miles per gallon on-road fuel economy and carry four gallons of fuel in an underslung fuel tank for a fully fueled up weight of under 150 pounds.
Structurally the key thing would be to protect the cameras and the radar. Not only do you not want them to be damaged, you don't want their mounts to get bent even the slightest bit out of alignment.
On the road sections of the course you'd use stereoscopic vision to establish road position as with the Italian ARGO project mentioned earlier, possibly with the object detection assisted with radar. You'd go as fast as you possibly could on road sections to build up average speed.
Off road you'd use primarily radar to assess forward obstacles. The strategy would be to steer a near direct course deviating around small obstacles. If a large obstacle was encountered, you'd backtrack 100 yards, turn 30 degrees one way, and go forward; if that didn't work you'd recursively back up more, turn the other way, and try, until you had passed the obstruction, at which point you'd plot a new direct course and carry on.
But the key things, it seems to me, are keep it small, keep it light, keep it simple.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.