Slashdot Mirror
DARPA Grand Challenge Updates
GraffitiKnight writes "After only 1 team managed to successfully navigate the DARPA Qualifying course, DARPA has rewritten the rules to let almost everyone compete. Wired has the story, which also mentions rumors that the race will run to 150 miles, much less than the original plans of 210 - 300 miles." Here is some earlier Slashdot coverage of the race.
...as the article makes them out to be.
All the Wired article states about the Caltech and Ohio State teams is that "The squads from Caltech and Ohio State University were also allowed in, even though their drones did not complete the obstacle course. "
From the Caltech team site: "Bob completed the test route flawlessly until the last few feet. He was stopped by DARPA officials seven feet away from the final obstacle -- although had he been allowed to continue, he may have stopped himself in time..."
Seems close enough to me.
There's a 10 hour time limit for the original 200 miles.
Darpa put out a press release yesterday after
m
the Wired article. Three more teams have qualified:
SciAutonics II, Team Cal Tech, and Virginia Tech
See: http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/media_news.ht
Notice its dated 10 AM yesterday.
The Virginia Tech team at least claims on its website that they completed the qualifying course.
http://www.me.vt.edu/grandchallenge/
The results of the attempts of today's group break down as follows:
I'm curious- what sort of shocks were you using?
Whether or not you do a lot of heavy duty off-roading, you should look at the higher end, heavy duty shocks for your vehicle. They may cost you a lot now, but will not require replacement down the road. The cheaper shocks will save you $$$ now, but may cost you in terms of poorer performance later on.
I've cooled on Monroe stuff after my experiences with Monroe shocks in my father's 73 Suburban. The shocks lasted about 15,000 miles before I needed to replace them again. I've also experienced quality problems with other Monroe items, notably gas-charged struts, in the past 5 to 6 years. Maybe it's just my bad luck...
If you don't want a gas shock, look at a Gabriel Adjustable "E" shock for all four corners. These are a hydraulic-only shock with an adjustment that allows you to set the ride from very soft to rock hard. Pay attention to the instructions, though, because if you set the shock too hard, you can rip suspension mounts. I put a pair of these in the back end of the aforementioned Suburban, and ripped one of the shock mounts off the rear axle! You can avoid this problem by having a competent welding shop reinforce the welds on the axle. Note: I do not know if these are still available, the last set I purchased was almost 6 years ago. I purchased these shocks through Super Shops, but anyone who handles the Gabriel line of shocks should be able to tell you if they are available.
Too bad the army gave out the contract 4 months ago (http://www.gendyn.com/news/press_releases/2003/De cember%209,%202003%20News%20Release.htm) to General Dynamics Robotic Systems and SAIC. (GDRS has a long standing partnership with CMU and SAIC is a sponser of CMU's entry)
General Dynamics Corporation (ticker: GD, exchange: NYSE)
News Release - Tuesday, December 9, 2003
Press Contact: (586) 825-7930
General Dynamics Robotic Systems Signs $185 Million Contract to Develop FCS Autonomous Navigation Capability
WESTMINSTER, Md. - General Dynamics Robotic Systems and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) have signed a $185 million contract for development of the Autonomous Navigation System (ANS) for ground vehicles as part of the U.S. Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program. SAIC, together with Boeing (NYSE: BA), comprise the FCS Lead Systems Integrator team. SAIC will administer the ANS multi-year agreement with General Dynamics Robotic Systems.
FCS is a networked "system of systems," using advanced communications and technologies to link soldiers with manned and unmanned ground and air platforms and sensors to significantly enhance the Army's effectiveness and maneuverability.
Under the FCS ANS program, General Dynamics Robotic Systems will be responsible for the design, development, manufacture, integration, and testing of a system that is capable of autonomously controlling any of several vehicles designated by the Army, including the Multi-functional Utility Logistics Equipment platform, the Armed Reconnaissance Vehicle, and Manned Ground Vehicles. The period of performance for the ANS program is through September 2009
ANS will provide navigational, perception, path-planning and vehicle-following algorithms and the requisite on-board sensor package for autonomous mobility. It is a major subsystem in the FCS manned combat system.
"ANS will comprise field sensor and software solutions based on autonomous mobility technology that we have been developing for many years," said Mark Del Giorno, vice president of engineering at General Dynamics Robotic Systems. "The ANS system, the 'brains' of the FCS robotic vehicles, will enable the Army's vision of a lighter, faster, highly effective future force."
General Dynamics Robotic Systems is a part of General Dynamics Land Systems (Sterling Heights, Mich.), a wholly owned subsidiary of General Dynamics Corporation (NYSE: GD).
General Dynamics Corporation, headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, employs approximately 66,900 people worldwide and anticipates 2003 revenues of $16.1 billion. The company has leading market positions in mission-critical information systems and technologies, land and amphibious combat systems, shipbuilding and marine systems, and business aviation.
Photos of our vehicle: http://vislab.ce.unipr.it/terramax/
C'mon Slashdot!
The official rules linked from the Wired article have not been updated since January 4, 2004.
The rules actually refer to the field test part of the QID as a Demonstration of basic abilities. It never says anywhere in the rules that they have to fully complete the demonstration to be qualified.
The rules have always stated that 25 teams would make it to QID but only 20 teams would actually compete in the race.
Yet another shining example of the media trying to make news where there is none...
I run one of the Grand Challenge teams, Team Overbot...
6 386 from March 8 and http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=83384&cid=7297 464 from October 23. The actual author is John Nagle, aka Animats. Please mod it down (and then you can mod this down too.)
This is a karma troll; it's been reposted every time we discuss this race. See http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=99774&cid=850
Here in the states NPR had a good story on one of the teams yesterday (wednesday) during their All Things Considered show. You can listen to the show here:
NPR LINK
The NPR Summary of the story is: At the crack of dawn this Saturday, a 200-mile race across the Mojave Desert begins. The competitors are robotic vehicles taking on the form of SUVs, dune buggies and golf carts. It's a contest sponsored by the Pentagon to spur advancements in the field of robotics. NPR's Melissa Block talks with competitor Red Whittaker.
I think this was the whole idea, DARPA wants to make sure they have some kind of "race" on their hands, not just one team putting along till the end.
Keep in mind that they're doing sequential starts. So it won't really be a race, just a long course with a few vehicles strung out one behind another. Far behind. And lots of disabled vehicles which have been shut down and pushed off the course (those few which even made it out of the starting gate).
DARPA is setting up a live update page where you'll be able to get a map of the course and watch in real time where the vehicles are during the race.
According to this schedule the first vehicle (which will be CMU's Sandstorm) is scheduled to depart at 6:15 AM PST on Saturday.
But now that it looks like the vast majority of the field won't make 200 feet, it's a whole new ballgame. When you only have to watch a football field size of land, it almost becomes pointless how many vehicles are wandering around inside it. So, why not let everyone race? It appears that most won't make it very far at all, and those that manage to do so will be easy to track. The defense department also gets a added bonus in that they get to evaluate a lot of different robotic equipment and a lot of different methods of robotic navigation. Perhaps there will be something in there that no one who was invited to the qualifying rounds thought of and is quite successful.
Just like in evolution, you never know which mutation will be the one that proves successful over time. The best way to ensure survivability or success is to have an extremely broad gene pool. If everyone shares a homogenous gene pool, then whatever environmental process destroys one stands a good chance of destroying the whole bunch. Having everyone race is a good thing.
Plus, after today, everyone knows that Sandstorm is the best vehicle, and having a race with one vehicle isn't very much fun to watch or very useful.
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I'd like you to name a bidding scandal then.
Dick Cheney's Haliburton was awarded contracts for Iraqi oil-field work without even bidding.
Dick Cheney's 2001 financial disclosure statement, states that the Halliburton is paying him a "deferred compensation" of up to $1million a year following his resignation as chief executive in 2000. -- from CorpWatch
Nope, no scandal here...
"When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind." -- Bill Moyers
Here's the URL: www.tracksidephoto.com/DARPA
There are full resolution, 6 mega-pixel images avaliable for download, but please don't take our servers down, K?