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DARPA's Autonomous Vehicle Challenge Too Popular?
Tim writes "Mobilerobotics.org has an editorial accompanying a copy of a letter to one of the teams entering the DARPA Grand Challenge 1 million dollar autonomous vehicle race, in which DARPA admits to underestimating the number of teams that can actually partipate in the actual race. They figure they've only got room for 20 teams, and more than 100 have applied. The writer of the editorial argues that if more than 20 teams can qualify safely and technically, DARPA should have to chose the 20 cheapest financed teams. What should DARPA do to sort out these problems?" CNET News has more on the high turn-out, while DARPA ponders its next step.
100 contestants, room for 20 on the course... run 5 heats! Top 4 from each go on to final heat of 20...
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Oh for heaven's sake, they're the Defense department, fercryinoutloud. Just run more races. They should make it a yearlong tournament. You know they could sell it to cable.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
The bottom line of the whole thing is that people have invested time and money in the research and development behind their vehicles. What DARPA should do is run the course multiple times with the max # of participants, or an even division of participants, but run all of the contestant vehicles through, and time/rate them on their traversal of the course. Then pick the X top competitors and run them all through again to pick a winner. Or something. But you can't honestly expect people, who, on the word of DARPA, undertook to research and build something as difficult and complex as an autonomous vehicle, to just walk away because DARPA didn't consider limiting the number of entries before they announced the contest. Adapt the competition to suit the response..... and you'll be certain you didn't throw the best idea out arbitratily to cut down the field.
They are cutting over 100 to the top 20ish by visiting each competitor and assessing their designs. Sounds fair to me. How how much it does versus how much it can do should be considered after the competition. If they can't winnow it down to 20ish (that would be GOOD news!!), then run 20 per day until done and then invite the best N back for Round 2 at a future data. Of course there is not an unlimited budget for this so some cuts have to be made.
They're supposed to be autonomous vehicles, right? If they can't keep out of each others way, they're not very autonomous, are they?
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
I am sure that a few short heat races would weed out 95% of the competitors.
love is just extroverted narcissism
The Italians solved this problem for Mille Miglia, the French solved this problem for Le Mans, and DARPA can't? You can see why the need help getting a hundred trucks onto the same highway.
Hmm. An editorial in an amateur robotics site recommends using the cheapest projects. Who'll have the cheapest projects? Why, the amateurs who don't have to pay for (or, at least, account for) labor, project space, etc., of course!
DARPA is looking for people to push the envelope on autonomous vehicle research. However, this is also a very political project that involves a lot of cross-department cooperation. They don't want to have to talk to the press about how an out-of-control "giant robot" crashed into the home of the last colony of purple spotted pigmy desert lizards and exploded. That means, effectively, that talented amateurs with a go-cart and a spare PC are not welcome. They want people who either have a track record or who seem to really be on top of things. As a result, I fully expect them to reject most of the last-minute entrants, small teams, or teams with known problems (like "it don't work yet").
Forward, retransmit, or republish anything I say here. Just don't misquote me.
Freight? No more Truck Drivers and the wreaks from them being too tired. No more Taxi Drivers.
The truck driver union wont let that happen.
In Japan and other parts of the world robots do construction work, ie. putting in windows on a sky scraper. They do it cheaper, safer, better, and more efficient than humans, but the glazier union doesnt allow that to happen in America. There are some private non-union companies that do use these technologies, but they tend to get pickted and sabotaged by the unions. Anything that takes jobs away will be fought
wud
Seems to me like the costs involved in simply extending the contest by a day or two(or 5) to run longer, as well as conduct any trail repairs and such, are minimal compared to the potential rewards from much more competition.
However, I suspect that the "big boy" defense contractors will get first pickings even if they have shit for entries, and if the armed services -really- want to stack the deck, they'll pick the independent teams they think have the least chance to fill out the other 15 or so slots.
If you don't believe me, just look at some of the wonderful moves the armed services have made in the past when things were supposed to be open to fair bidding etc. Or, look at the current bids for Iraq stuff- one does wonder what sort of commission Cheney gets these days- oh wait, that would be his Haliburton retirement account...
Please help metamoderate.
Just taking 20-40 of the entrants sucks. You follow the rules, come up with a design that costs a million dollars, then they say "sorry, you're not the cheapest - bye bye"...
That's the wrong way to do it, anyway. You pick the winner(s) out of the best ones to do it successfully for the lowest cost, not the ones that only have a low up-front cost. If they don't work, you've binned 80% of your other candidates.
Also, you look for the lowest cost of building the finished unit, not the development costs put up front. Some teams may have had massive amounts of money put into them to guarantee a win, that doesn't imply the finished unit will be expensive to make.
I'd love to know who in the hell decided this was funny. I'm so tired of hearing "The defense department loves to kill people". That's not what they do, actually it's quite the opposite. They're their to PROTECT PEOPLE. They go out of their way spending billions to not kill people.
Example: smart bombs. Billions in research, millions more to purchase and maintain than "dumb bombs", but able to knock out a satelite dish on top of a building without leveling the building. If the defense department "loved to kill people" than they would just as easily drop dumb bombs and kill everything within a 100 yards. Much easier and much cheaper.
Oh and let's not forget all the defense technology that reaches the public. Microwaves, GPS, lasers and even computers were all funded thanks to the defense department.
So while you sit there and bash the defense department for developing technology to "kill people", remember you're able to bash them using technology they helped research and develop.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Its not actually cheaper. You'd have to carpet the area in bombs to ensure the target is destroyed if you're using gravity bombs. I'm pretty sure one converted GPS bomb costs less than 2 dozen+ gravity bombs of the same type.
This doesn't even go into the fact that an invading force would shoot itself in the foot if it destroyed everything, considering its going to be occupying the land for a while.
Also doesn't go into the "PR" costs back in America. The bottom line is they're only in the business of "protecting" people (or atleast seeming that way) because if they werent the US public/media would have such a fit that Iran contra would look trivial.
Trust me when I say it is ALL a numbers game to the Pentagon.
suddenly I feel very tired