DARPA Robot Contest Update

rbrandis writes "DARPA has selected a wide variety of teams, after a series of last minute rule changes and a solid outpouring of anger, the final list of competitors for DARPA's Grand Challenge robot race has been set with 25 teams preparing to try and win a $1 million prize." The anger is exemplified by submissions like this one: Totally_Lost writes "Last spring we flocked to DARPA's Grand Challenge media event in Los Angeles to be told that they wanted everyone's participation in their Robot race this March. They told us that the race would be open to Mom and Pop garage sized participants - and Lied. This fall, nearly 100 teams completed technical paper submissions, with about half to be eliminated from the $1M prize race because they were too small to be 'real' competitors. Well, the rejected robot racing teams got together in Las Vegas last month, and formed the International Robot Racing Federation. This month IRRF is announcing its first competition with $1M in prizes pledged by sponsors, and lesser prizes too, to be offered in a REAL OPEN Challenge next September (providing the race that DARPA failed to deliver)."

Comments

Repost

[n0nsensical]

Oh, here we go again, repost from the anti-slash karma DB. Originally posted here.

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[Mentifex]

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Deja vu for a RW competitor

[carndearg]

Looking at this story I have a strong sense of deja vu. As a member of a team competing in the UK Robot Wars series I remeber 2 or 3 years ago when a disparate group of teams either rejected by, disenchanted with or simply not involved with the TV production company tried to go it alone with an independant combat robots association. Their business model was based around a touring roadshow for which they set about building a mobile arena. In principle this was a fine idea, but AFAIK it stalled for lack of money and management issues.

I appreciate that the DARPA teams are working in a different ballpark from your average garden shed RW team. But the same basic economic rules apply and looking at the web site the sense of deja vu is increased. If they've got these sponsors then power to them but yet again the www site is a little sparse on the subject. You need more than just a shared sense of rejection to make a business model.

Plagiarism!

[herrvinny]

Don't Plagiarize

Re:Nice to see the technology is catching up...

[Space]

I work for an industrial robotics company. In my experience, when a company buys a robot to augument an existing production line, they are trying to increase throughput on the entire line. Any workers directly replaced by the robot are retrained and moved upstream from their former position on the production line. Only the workers that cannot be retrained lose their jobs.

Re:If you don't have your own machine shop ...

[ignipotentis]

Robocode is the same type of thing. You create a Java Class that is used to simulate a tank. And just like RARS, its not as easy as it looks.

The real issues Grand Challenge competitors face

[Animats]

The real things competitors are complaining about are these:

• This is turning into a breadcrumb-following exercise. DARPA provides a "waypoint file" on CD-ROM two hours before the race. For each segment between waypoints, there's an allowed path width, indicating the area in which the vehicle must stay or be disqualified. Originally, the vehicles were supposed to be truly autonomous, with the DARPA-supplied waypoint data providing only general corridors. That's what made this interesting. Then DARPA said they would provide about 1000 GPS waypoints. Now they're saying it will be about 5000 GPS waypoints. With 25 waypoints per mile, it may be possible to do this on GPS alone, blindly driving from waypoint to waypoint, with some minimal obstacle detection and avoidance. That's not "autonomous". That's preprogrammed, like the old Milton Bradley Big Trak toy.
• Some teams are using a "semi-autonomous approach". In the two hours between the release of the waypoint file and the start of the race, large numbers of people at remote sites will manually plan out each segment of the trip, using aerial photographs and maps. The trip segments will be combined, downloaded to the vehicle, and used to drive it. DARPA has approved this approach. That's not "autonomous", either.
• Government funding of entries has been a big issue. Caltech is using the "Perceptor" software package, which fuses overhead and ground imagery. Perceptor was developed with DARPA funds at JPL, and is not available outside JPL/Caltech. The Caltech team formally asked DARPA if this was OK, and DARPA said yes. Other teams complained. The head of the CMU team is currently a principal investigator on NASA's Hyperion robot program, which raises some red flags about Government funding. DARPA is now requiring teams to provide a "certification of self-sufficiency" statement, with lines like "If the hardware and software is proprietary to my team, it was not developed or purchased using U.S. Government funding either directly ... or indirectly". CMU has received Government funding for robotics work for decades, and it's not at all clear if any of that crept into their entry.
• We're hearing rumors that the 2004 event might be the last one, even if nobody wins. This is apparently an internal issue within DARPA, and we haven't heard details. DARPA's officially stated position is that the event will be held "approximately annually" until someone wins through at least 2007, when the Congressional funding runs out.

The selection process wasn't hard for anyone who had a clue. DARPA was evaluating papers for months, and you could resubmit as many times as you wanted. DARPA warned entrants in the rules that it might take several turnarounds to get a paper through. The people whining about rejection submitted papers at the last minute.

We'll be in Fontana in March.

John Nagle
Team Overbot

PLAGIARIST

[Anonymous Coward]

This post was copied from one back in October.

"the man with the pla" is a common troll.