Preparing for the DARPA Autonomous Vehicle Challenge

Little Hamster writes "Post-gazette.com has an interesting article on the DARPA funded 200-mile autonomous vehicle race across the California-Nevada desert. They interviewed teams from two of the early favourites, Carnegie Mellon University and the California Institute of Technology. The teams talked about challenges on driving at high speed over a combination of roads, rough terrain and brush-covered desert, where the robot would need to consider how fast it can make a turn, the possibility of spinning tires and the potential to become airborne when hitting bumps."

Comments

Re:Further applications

[Osty]

This is really cool.. technology like this could be used in consumer cars to reduce rollover/tire spin/etc. Maybe even 'smart' cars that drive themselves, leaving the human passengers free to sleep or get work done.

We already have all of that technology available already.

• Preventing roll-overs: Buy a car that's not top-heavy. If you have a real need for an SUV that is top-heavy, don't try to drive it like a car, because it's not. It's a truck, and you should be aware of that (ie, avoid turning sharply, braking suddenly, etc). The newer cross-over and car-based SUVs (Chrysler Pacifica, Porsche Cayenne/VW Touareg, Infiniti FX models, etc) are much better in this respect. I'm referring mostly to the body-on-frame truck-based SUVs. I don't drive my huge F250 like I do my Boxster, simply because the F250 doesn't handle like the Boxster does.
• Wheel spin: Traction control/stability management systems are quite intelligent these days, using modulated application of braking at the different wheels depending on what's need. Otherwise, keep your tires in good condition (check your remaining tread depth, air pressure, etc) and use the proper type of tire (summer ultra-performance tires are dangerous on snow or ice, of course) and you'll be much safer. It's scary the number of cars I see on the road with bald tires or low pressure.
• Cars that drive themselves: Busses, trains, etc. Of course, this assumes you're in an area with a good mass transit system, which many of us are not. On the whole, though, I'd rather entrust myself to a human bus driver than an autonomous car, at least for the forseeable future. (That said, I never use mass transit, because it's simply not useful where I live, and I love driving :)

Okay, so those may not be as glamorous as a fully-robotic car, but the technology is already there. And as far as future autonomous cars go, so long as I can still buy a car that lets me manage throttle, brakes, shifting on my own for fun, I'll be happy.

Re:Just like a video game

[nissin]

Yes and no. As you say, you need to get the AI information about each object and what it is. I'm working on the Caltech team, and that is where the majority of time is being spent on the software side - detecting and classifying objects. It is an extremely difficult task given todays technology, a limited budget, and the variety of obstacles you can find. Some examples:

How do you determine if there is an object, or it is just mud on the camera?
How do you detect dust and filter that out?
How do you detect a fence - the links are generally too small to be picked up on the camera until you are very close.
How do you detect water?

The list goes on and on...Some of these have answers, some do not. Many times you can use a variety of sensors - visual, ladar, inertial, gps, etc and at least one of them will be giving accurate information. But how do you deal with inconsistent information? GPS says you are in the middle of a river because it is off by a few meters, but the visual says you are not.

I would say that once you have that information, however, the problem becomes relatively straight forward.

Re:Sounds dangerous

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out the website. They'll have a field referee vehicle following every entry. The field vehicle will have a kill switch implemented and tested by DARPA.

Re:Wrong

[cyril3]

Or perhaps you'd rather we just threw the money into some secret black box projects, never to see the light of day?

Well the Blackbird was pretty cool. In fact it was the coolest damm piece of tech so far developed.

And I for one would rather see them flying around taking pictures than a bunch of autonomous laser tanks trying to miss civilians as they take out the eye of some dumb third world conscripted grunt who happens to be wearing the uniform of the 'enemy de jour' just so joe sixpack can read the paper while he 'drives' to work in his SUV.

Q: What do you call a motorized transport wherein you can freely read the newspaper and converse with fellow travellers and not need to worry about passing traffic?

A: The Bus.