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Another DARPA-Sponsored Robotics Competition
dexterpexter writes "While some say that DARPA played unfairly in eliminating Grand Challenge teams they deem unworthy, they, the Department of Defense, and General Motors (among others) sponsor an autonomous robotics competition in which they exercise less control over who competes and who does not. The rules are more lenient and the prizes are less illustrious, but this competition still holds the spirit of 'openness' and rewarding innovation that the Grand Challenge seems to have lost. Of course, you must be from a university to compete, but any university-based vehicle passing the competition-day qualifications gets a fair shot at winning. No pre-competition disqualifications. My team has competed for several years."
I am the lead engineer of the team 'R Junk Works'. Our paper was submitted and approved by DARPA for the Grand Challenge. They then put us in the'Partially Acceptable' category just after approval. This was no big deal for us as we had our prototype vehicle already built for testing. Their 'Site Visit' seemed like just another hoop to jump through before entering the race. The only three people on our team have worked at the 'Lockheed Martin Skunk Works', so our little group is the spin offs - or the 'Junk Works'. We are also in Palmdale California. The four site visitors/inspectors arrived at my garage on the 5th of December to inspect our progress. They road around in our test vehicle that had integrated DGPS, INU and Vision systems running under LINUX Fedora Core 1.0 installed in my personal 1998 Toyota Tacoma pickup truck. They let it slip that this was a 'first for them' to be riding around in one of the contestant vehicles. They road around in the desert next to my house here in Palmdale along a pre programmed course that took them down dirt desert roads and washes here in the Mojave Desert - only a few mile away from where they are going to have the actual race. They had other inspectors jump in front of our vehicle and watched how it avoided them by driving around them. They watched with amazement as our vehicle raced along in excess of 35 mph across the rutty desert roads. Almost everything worked perfectly for the demo except our main vision system camera had been damaged the day before and we were using our backup camera that was having intermittent problems, but did not take away from the totality of the demo. It was probably one of the best demos I have ever given in my entire professional life. I could tell, if I could summarize their attitude of the demo, it would be that they were amazed, enthused and eating out of our hands when it was over. They also let it somewhat slip that we were the farthest along that they had seen yet! Well, after the demo, we assumed that it was inevitable that we would be selected for one of the six slots left. No joy ? they called us on December 17th (my birthday) and told us that we were not selected to participate. The reason we gave was that we did not as yet have a race vehicle. This was their own doing, as once our vehicle sponsor got wind that we were not 'Totally Acceptable', they backed out and were waiting for our team to be on the 'Totally Acceptable' list before donating the actual race vehicle. We even supplied statements of sponsorship from that sponsor = they obviously did not read them = OR = perhaps there was another incentive. After talking to a guy called 'Dan' who is the editor of a national magazine and good friend of mine, he also went to the 'Kick Off' for the Grand Challenge that DARPA had in LA last year. He was able to 'Liquor Up' one of the DARPA legal reps, and SHE intimated that the reason they were holding the Grand Challenge was to put the fear of god into their current contractor and show that they could go else ware for technical projects. She also said that it had already achieved this goal and that even if the GC was never to happen, that they would have already achieved this philosophical goal. Anyway, I admit, what I have said is but the ranting of a sour disgruntled looser. But now, you know 'The rest of the story' from my tainted eyes.