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Grand Challenge 1, Competitors 0
Ivan writes "According to the DARPA Grand Challenge Status Board, 2 bots were withdrawn before the race started and the remaining 13 were all disabled. Red Team and SciAutonics II tied at 7 miles, a bit short of the 142 miles required." CNN has coverage and interviews.
This was not a failure just because no one got further than seven miles. Contrary to a failure, this has been a grand success. DARPA spent around 13 million to host it, and got a lot of great minds in the public at large to start thinking of ways to solve very complex technological difficulties. In terms of sheer dollar value, the amount of technological research by private individuals easily surpassed the 13 million the government invested. Already companies are being created, and the wheels of commerce spun.
This benefits the public from the technology that is being created that otherwise lacked an impetus. It benefits industry by showing a host of new ideas that otherwise would have never come through the regular channels. It certainly benefits DARPA for sheer investment and public relations value. It can benefit future soldiers by reducing their risk to dangerous jobs. This also benefits the defense contractors that just got a small reminder that someone from out of nowhere could become a player - think of it as lighting a fire in their belly.
All told this was a challenge, and was never intended to be easily winnable. It certainly was advertised as being unlikely to be won this year. All told I think DARPA should hold more contests like this for other areas that have grown stagnant. For a historical perspective consider that Lindbergh crossed that Atlantic on just such a contest. A contest that inspired the X-Prize. Perhaps we should see DARPA become involved in future X-Prizes as well?
Just remember not to name the project skynet.
A guy on a mule has been evading the might and majesty of the United States Army in the Afghan mountains for over two years.
Has the "privateer" race been done? It would be nice to see a privateer complete the challenge.
I think that even though they only got 7 miles into the course, thats still damn good engineering. Maybe next year they will have worked out what has gone wrong and figured out a way to flesh out an autonomous robot (Or hide a midget navigator somewhere!).
Monster Car do?
Okay, someone feel free to correct me, but how did any of the competitors fail in this one? They only needed to get their entry to go 142 miles on autopilot... 142 miles across a completely barren plain, with very few obstacles.
I would expect that a stock 4x4 truck would have gotten further with no modifications beyond a brick on the gas pedal and the steering-wheel locked to go straight.
Something about this doesn't sound right (no, not a conspiracy theory, just that everything I've read on this has apparently omitted some very critical detail that would make the challenge considerable more... Well... "Challenging").
Anyone care to enlighten me?
The whole thing makes you conisder just how much processing power we use to control our speed around curves and avoid potholes when we're driving. We can integrate a hell of a lot of information, process the relavent signals and adjust our behavior in milliseconds. And that's not adding the additional struggle of trying to get your iPod to play through the stereo system....
It means that autonomous fighting machines are still some way off.
I suspect that the first industrialised nation that develops autonomous fighting machines will take over the world (or at least have a damn good go).
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
They tried and died.
My link is barely fast enough to watch the streaming coverage from CMU, and the official 3D progress map is currently indicating one team is half way to the finish. Did they escape?
Did these teams at all test their robots before competing or did they just straight line it. Surely they would have scoped out their designated path prior to competition and tested some similar paths.
If the dollar is an "I owe you nothing", then the Euro is a "Who owes you nothing." - Doug Casey
So who is going to start an open source team so we can show the world that open source software really does work?
What's up with all the mechanical failures? Yeah, it's rough terrain, but we've been building human-powered vehicles that can handle it for decades! I'd think that keeping your engine going or your brakes from locking up would be the least "grand" part of the challenge.
I'm sure no one has put any thought into this subject before. Your analysis will be seriously considered.
Yes, this was a grand challenge. But it would be nice if teams could solve part of the problem at first, get some recognition and minor prize money for that, and then move on.
So perhaps step one should have been just doing a long ordinary road course, minimal obstical avoidance, just handling roads, turns, potholes, ramps and even traffic lights (where you are told they are).
That contest would provide useful civilian tech and also useful military tech in terms of a autonomous vehicles to carry cargo in a controlled area with intact roads.
Or you could also imagine autonomous vehicles which handle roads, but then get to a rough patch they can't handle. At the rough patches you station soldiers who drive/remote control the vehicles over the rough patch, but you need far fewer because they stay in one place and only do the rough patch. Let humans do what they can do and computers do the boring long-haul road drive.
Next, hold a contest for a shorter rough course with obstacles.
Finally, combine the two.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
To be fair, they were looking for him in the region of Afghanistan known as Iraq.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
...how insane does this make the team that entered a motorcycle?
I was on a team but unfortunately, most members abandoned the idea because it was determined that "it would be impossible" and apparently they/we were right, not that it's something I'm especially proud of. I was moreso dealing with the regret I had for not following through with it, even just for the experience and fun. Hopefully they'll continue with the plans of holding events like this yearly.. I can see it growing like crazy indeed.
You read it here first!. Nothing against the guys trying but this is one damn hard challenge. A shorter race to start out would have been a better test. You got to walk before you run.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
What really surprised me about this competition is that no one went for the stupid solution. I read about a robot competition in the late 90's that involved obstical avoidance. One of the top finishers had no computer controller it only changed course when it ran into something and placed high just because it didn't break down.
Don't mess with the bunny, outsideworld.org
What are you talking about? This was a complete failure. 7 miles?! That is downright pathetic.
Next time I'd love to see the big tech companies put some money into this. With robots sponsored by Microsoft, IBM, Apple, etc. going head to head, man, that would be awsome to watch!
"I already gave my best. I have no regrets at all."
You mean Berkeley?
:)The first tanks could only go a thousand yards before breaking down, and they had a 7 man crew.
it didn't take long for things to change.
Just like 1000s of geeks worldwide, I watched this with great interest. But the whole organization thing left me with a funny taste in the mouth.
It seemed as if the group that could throw the most money at the "problem" would win. Take the CMU team for example: they paid for a high-res survey of the area; had undergrads map out each and every obstacle in all of the possible paths; etc. Now, if the goal of this "grand challenge" was to unleash the entrepreneurial spirit, then it failed. Money != Entrepreneurial spirit.
Taking lessons from the RoboCup people, I would have preferred that DARPA organize it as follows:
- Create a simulator for the sensors, and design a small (virtual) course for this simulator. Let people develop algorithms using this simulator, and have a competition in this virtual simulator to select a set of (say) 30 teams.
- Provide each of these teams a platform: a humvee equipped with the sensors (actual ones from (1) above). Of course, if a team wants, it can add its own sensors.
- After some time, hold a "grand challenge".
- Analyse the approaches taken by the various teams, and (important) share the code among the teams. If a team designs a new sensor that is useful, get copies made and share with the teams for the next iteration.
- Go back to step (1) above, and repeat.
Preference could be given to schools or efforts involving students, as not only is this a great learning experience, but also it will be a great motivator.Just look at the technology gap between CMU and the rest of the entrants. It is quite an achievement that someone was able to equal CMU in performance.
There are a lot of smart hackers out there who would love to take a crack at this problem, but the lack of hardware is a serious hurdle.
DARPA Grand Challenge Kicks Off March 13th
Monday March 08, @10:40PM
GillBates0 writes "A quick reminder that the DARPA Grand Challenge is due to kick off March 13, the coming Saturday." He points to this "quick recap of the teams participating in the event," as well as details about the available satellite feeds. "The Atlanta-Journal Constitution is running a story about the event today. Quoting Frank Dellaert, co-director of Georgia Tech's robotics lab from the article, 'I would have trouble driving some of these roads myself. I think it's beyond the capabilities of autonomous vehicles today.' (shameless school plug). We'll see if the participants can prove him wrong."
Those words ring so true now...I never expected the contest to end on such a negative note.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
The Washington Post has a good set of pix and video (Flash involved). FWIW, I was figuring that the Red Team's Humvee might make it. What did they do, forget to check the oil? Or perhaps the software went bonkers and left the engine at or over redline with no load?
db
Cig:
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the idea behind these things is to create automated ammo/medic/fuel ferries eventually. It wouldn't do to have a 7-ton vehicle run into a group of wounded soldiers at 40 mph. Or anything else, for that matter.
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Not surprising, not one of the vehicles had a tin foil hat! How else could they have avoided being "deactivated" by a government agency?
There's now a known 142 mile test course for use in developing entries for future contests.
the answer is simple: AT-AT's
I got your "obstacle circumvention" right here...
STOMP!
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if it was software that caused the vehicles to become disabled.
I'm reminded of the software bug that destroyed a very expensive Ariane rocket. Both guidance computers essentially bluescreened and the main computer used the error code as it had other values.
Official ESA account of the Ariane 5 Flight 501 (1996) failure
Three page report of "The Bug That Destoyed a Rocket" [pdf]
It must be Windows. It needs half a gig of RAM and a hardware-accelerated graphics card just to run Solitaire.
I was thinking about that a few months ago when I was working on a film shoot. I had to run some supplies between a remote location and the base camp. The terrain was really rough-- this was a forest, and it had a lot of trees, roots, rocks, crevices and the like. And I absolutely, positively had to be at the base camp ASAP.
I found myself running as fast as I could, but my mind set up an interesting pipeline. I was always looking five to eight feet in front of me and my brain feverishly tried to parse out what was a rock, what was a branch, what was a big root, what was sloped ground, what was even ground, etc. Then, that information got passed to a route-choosing part of my brain that decided where the best place was to put each foot: left, right, left, right. That information, in turn, went to my brain's motor department, which was actually in charge of balance, weight distribution, and muscle movement to actually put the feet where they were supposed to be and keep my momentum without falling.
I call this a pipeline because my eyes never left that five-to-eight foot range. When I was selecting any bit of route, I was already looking at the next bit of route and stepping on the last bit of route. I never looked at my feet, but somehow always put them where they needed to be.
I wouldn't make such an analogy anywhere other than slashdot, but I could feel that the load average on my brain was as high as it could be. I didn't have any free cycles to think about my day, or have a song in my head, or think of my next joke, as I usually do. Every ounce of my concentration was going to these automatic, practically sub-conscious processes. I know was processing as fast as I could -- any faster, and my brain would tell me, "I can't parse the terrain that fast," or "I can't decide on a route that quick."
Don't give me any credit for it, because it has nothing to do with knowledge or intelligence, but I was solving an extraordinarly tough problem very quickly. In short, if I could bring my brain to the edge, I can see how tough this is for the DARPA contestants!
This is impossible to do. There are too many variables in the real world.
The bane of autonomous robotics is the fact you can't create an accurate world model. Sure, you can model the things you think will have the most effect, but there are literally millions of little things which by themselves may not mean much, but over time or in differing combinations can cause havoc and system disruption.
As an example, say for driving over barbed wire. Suppose you hit it at just such an angle the wire gets wrapped around the axle? You can't predict such things.
The post-mortems will be interesting to read. I hope they post them online.
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This might be a troll and not very politically correct... but it's REALLY fucking funny.
So I have to imagine a lot of people have read of the failures and thought, "I could do better than that". I hope that this "failure" does lead a lot of people to follow through on the thought.
With robots sponsored by Microsoft, IBM, Apple, etc. going head to head, man, that would be awsome to watch!
Microsoft's robot would break down frequently and require human maintenance.
IBM's would work well, but would have an obscurely-shaped fuel system that requires expensive IBM Fuel Cells(tm). The racing team would all be wearing suits.
Apple would produce a shiny, glossy, and reasonably reliable robot that scratched incredibly easily and had bits of the body break off when traveling along. The sound system would be an iPod.
May we never see th
I'm really surprised no one finished the race but from experience I know how tough robotics can be.
A few years ago I was a member of a Highschool robotics team were we build a hockey playing robot one year and a tank the next. They were RC which made is doable but it still was quite challanging.
Robots don't have self preservation instinct and usually end up destroying it self. This seems to be the case in this competition.
When driving a car your not only trying to navigate and not hit people, other cars,etc... Your also trying to not beatup your car. This is a very hard thing to program into a robot. Driving up a rocky hill isn't a simple as taking path with the least rocks in the way, usually its better to find another way around. But in programming how the hell do you tell that its unpassable. A brick wall is easy but a washed out road is hard to determin with cameras and other sensors.
As a human one would get out of their car and walk through before driving. In a race situation you would already know the course and whats passable.
Another challange is sand, its very easy to get stuck and its also hard to tell how deep or lose it is.
In miltary applications you would have detailed aerial photos or beable to take your time so this isn't a realistic test.
God, root, what is the difference?
The road warrior bot seems to be moving still.. are they dragging it along the course? Are we going to get footage of the collisions? I mean there are bound to be some great ones since computers make ridiculously large mistages, plus all the guilt of enjoying watching people die is avoided.
AMD sponsored an entry.
So did Intel
I hope you die painfully and alone.
They did pretty good considering the *huge* funding disadvantage vs Red Team. The "truggy" they used for the their second team entry is a pretty impressive vehicle. Soaks up bumps very well.
My computer vision prof (one of the team members) showed us some demo video of the vehicle test, and it would be pretty fun to drive it around out in the desert. Good platform to start from.
There is an algorithm out there called the Kalman filter which does this. It's very complicated and rooted in probability theory, but it basically takes several sensor inputs, smooths out their response based on previous values (and known noise characteristics, such as the typical standard deviation from the truth) and makes a good assumption about where the sensors will be in the near-future.
It is very accurate, if you tune it properly (thats the tricky part)
This is very important for real time things because you need to begin to smoothly react to situations before they happen (ie, driving into an obstacle at high speeds).
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i'll still have to look out for bluehairs on the streets. when this technology is perfected and the elderly won't have to worry about driving, think of the decrease in traffic accidents such as southern florida and phoenix! on second though, everyone should be driven in robot cars.
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Osama on a mule and foot is still eluding the US, the Iraqi guerrelas are either on foot or on mule, they continue to pester the US, whereas the Iraqi army, with trucks and tanks and other machines, was pulverized quickly.
... think of the Korean peninsula. If the north were to try to conquer the south, they would destroy its usefulness. Heh heh, if you want to think about something bizarre, think of the south surrendering as is to the north ... they would assimilate the north so fast, Dear Leader's head would spin as fast as his father in his grave.
Furthermore, empires today are built on economics, not military. It's bogus to even think of conquering western Europe, Japan, many of the small Asian countries, the US, Russia
Military might is only useful against dirt poor countries, and even then only in a limited sense.
Infuriate left and right
They aren't remote controlled. The car has to figure how to go the entire route without human intervention.
Whoa, look at this: with three minutes of typing and thinking, this Slashdotter just solved the problem that experienced engineers and computer scientists worked on nonstop for a year, at the cost of millions of dollars!
...
Looks like they'll have to send actual people on their missions of peace and understanding for some time yet.
:O
... I can't wait until the US military finally has some ultra-efficient killing machines on their hands. Those soliders of theirs have ridiculous requires like food and sleep, and some of them even go crazy at the sight of all the destruction they're causing. And then there's the constant stream of deaths that you have to ban the media from showing to keep the presidential approval rating up. Bring on the killing machines!
Although recalling some videos of patriot missiles in action, maybe this technology is an improvement on what they've got.
Hell, at least these guys could work at NASA
But back to the story
http://dgc.gi.alaska.edu/Overview_2_1_04.htm Section 2.4.1
Don't mod this cut-n-paste troll up anymore.
...
woman drivers, no survivors.
werd.
Looks like most of the vehicles "crashed" (one way or another) pretty early on. Aside from a few scattered details (one apparently got tangled in barbed wire, a few flipped, some didn't start), anyone have a full list of What Happened to each of them?
TANSTAAFI: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free iPod.
...it was the acid talking
One might think a brick jammed on the accelerator of a jeep or H2 might have a chance to make it 7 miles.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
At least against an opponent that can defend himself.
Cruise missiles cost millions per shot. Smart bombs 100,000s. Drones millions.
And a though with a 250$ ak74, and 50$ worth of c4 can do as much damage. Without radar warning.
Trying a full scale high-tech war would ruin any country.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
(In fact, the Great Egg Race was probably as tough on school kids as this race was on the engineers who competed... with the difference that the kids usually succeeded.)
The micromouse championship was also notoriously tough... and yet many succeeded there, with finishing times of under a minute to navigate a maze of unknown complexity.
These kinds of contests are generally tough because they stretch the minds. Minds don't stretch easily, without practice.
I would have thought that a good mech eng geek could have reached double or triple-digit distances without killing themselves. The problem is the culture.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The time will certainly help, and the experience will help immensely.
:)
As for improving the world model, they'll be able to add a few more variables to it and tweak others, but it will still be far from complete. There are still going to be issues like running over something at the wrong angle, or taking a curve too sharp and the sand shifts under the tires and it gets swung wildly off course, the system overcorrects and the vehicle flips or gets turned around... problems like that are really frustrating
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Parent found yet another cut-n-paste-w/o-credit-to-the-author post. Please mod accordingly.
This is *great* news!
It means that autonomous fighting machines are still some way off.
This is a really weird sentiment to see on a technology website. I grant you that an autonomous fighting machine would be a bad thing to release on the world, but they'd still be a ways off even if some contestants passed the DARPA challenge. So many advances are necessary for an "autonomous fighting machine", that I think we can comfortably benefit from the development of robotic ATVs without worrying that they will someday rule the world.
Are you happy every time a chip design fails, because that postpones the inevitable rise of the "automous fighting machine"? Are you excited when you hear that Honda has to delay the release of ASIMO-2 because they can't get the hip-joints to work properly? Yet another set-back for the conquering strategy of the "autonomous fighting machine"!
It's also weird that someone else here thinks you're luddite comments are insightful.
what you think a world without the united states would be like.
I'm sure you think it'd be a much better place.
I think you'd be speaking Russian.
Have teams done some real life testing before going to competition? Or they just did theoretical tests simulating on computer?
After all, you've got to remember that the world's fastest computers, the really, really big iron out there, still have about as much computational power as your average cockroach.
Not that I would condone such a thing, but, hey, if you're designing delivery systems for the US military, I think you've already lost the moral high ground.
Both CMU and Caltech seem to have failed on Power Line Road near Camp Rock Road, That's a rather boring piece of terrain, and seemingly easier than the first two miles. Again, what went wrong?
In fact, it is not even clear what we can learn from failure like that, which we could not learn otherwise.
Flashy things like this race do not necessarily tell us anything more about deep problems of AI. One can spend millions and millions and not get any closer to the goal.
Most of the time, you drive at between 20 to 30 MPH tops often at just 15 MPH.
Didn't these people but their vehicles through any kind of testing before bringing them out? They should've assumed that obstacles of various types would have been employed and tried to create and program their vehicles to avoid or untangle themselves from such things.
I find this to be truly appauling, personally! It seems to me that any team that took the time to build one of these would have put the time in to make sure things like breaks would get stuck and axles wouldn't break. Absolutely appauling!
I'm looking for sponsorship, fabricators, and programmers in the MN/WI area to compete in the next competition. Interested parties please contact darpachallenge(at)phayze.com Serious offers only. Must be able to put in 20+ hours/week minimum and work with a team.
What the heck is a 'sig'?
Given that the terrain may be filled with obstacles and uneven in contour, why didn't someone come up with a machine that simply jumped 30-40 yards at a time -- using a combustion ram to provide the motive force.
:-)
This would have potentially overcome many of the problems and if it were designed to be self-righting, even landing on an award contour and rolling over shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Another alternative is something that had short-term "hover" capabilities -- ie: checked the path ahead was clear for the next x-yards and then, drove that distance. If it saw something that appeared to be an obstacle it could hover over it for whatever distance was required.
Come to think of it -- why were DARPA so all-keen on using wheeled vehicles? What would be wrong with a hovercraft -- even one without a skirt so that the barbed-wire wasn't so much of an issue?
Wheels are okay, but they're certainly not the best option for uneven and unpredictable terrain -- after all, nature is an *expert* designer but you don't see any animals with wheels do you
...how insane does this make the team that entered a motorcycle?
I suppose you weren't watching the live satellite feed when the motorcycle was demonstrated via remote control. It couldn't enter the race, but they just wanted to show it off.
It fell to the ground in literally 1 second.
Why they tried to solve a stabilization problem instead of an autonomy problem is beyond me. As I've said before, they engineered their own failing. This is different than the Red Team, where the basic hard problem of obstacle detection killed them.
Robo-Blogs of the world: UNITE!
the news of an OBL capture will conveniently surface in October, right before the election sweep. ;)
Sharing doesn't create innovation, competition does. If everyone shares, every does the same thing and no innovation is produced.
You really have to wonder. Not one robot vehicle could drive 150 miles over terrain where the challenges were purely passive... nothing was actively trying to stop them, nothing was trying to evade them, nothing was shooting at them, no decoys were trying to confuse them. And not one of them got more than seven miles.
Does anyone really believe that missile defense is a much easier challenge? If not, does anyone really believe that it can succeed in the foreseeable future?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
I was lucky enough to have a press pass. We had to get to Barstow at 5:00am (driving up from LA) which was rough. Driving in the dark along the highway leading to the start, we topped a rise and in the valley below portable lights had been strung up creating an oasis of light. As we got closer we could see the satelite uplink trucks, grandstands, police, and military.
After registering and getting our fancy orange safety vests, we went to the starting line and were able to get some great pictures as the bots prepared to start the race. Red Team (from Carnegie Mellon) had the best qualifying time so they were first out of the gates. Their 3 million dollar hummer started off fast and was quickly out of sight. The four helicopters filming from the air were flying dangerously close to each other trying to get a good shot so it was easy to track where the vehicle was.
SciAutonics II was the next bot out of the gate, the also had a good start and proceeded out of view. About this time we heard the good news, Team Red was seven miles down the course. Soon after we got the bad news, Red Team's vehicle had died. The odds on favorite was eliminated by a mechanical failure after only 7 miles.
Several of the rest of the bots failed to get past the first turn, and the rest either withdrew or failed within a few miles. The six wheeled ENSCO lost control, ran up the embankment, and overturned. Of the 100+ teams who built bots, 25 were invited to qualify, 15 of those were allowed to race, and only 7 of those made it more than a mile.
All in all it was an excellent experience. My suggestions for next year (or for the openchallenge, etc) would be to do the race in segments like the WRC does. Divide the 200 mile race into 10 mile segments, teams get points based on their performance for the stage. If you fail a stage you're not eliminated, you just fall in the rankings. Teams are allowed an hour of maintenance between stages to fix any problems they think they can fix. This would make it both a lot more interesting, and a lot more satisfying.
in some autonomous robotics stuff i've worked on, after task competitions teams would get together and discuss varying approaches to problems.
While no code sharing occured (nor would've been useful, as each platform has its own unique way of doing basic tasks), discussing approaches leads often to combined approaches, fresh perspectives on ideas and then THAT leads to innovation as each time takes what they've learned and applies it to the next project. Eventually the most efficient and "best" system results.
By your logic, nobody should go to a university to learn things and should learn everything on their own to foster 'innovation', while in fact everyone would be reinventing the wheel a billion times over.
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Try plugging "autonomous" into the electronic dictionary of your choice.
One of those rules will eventually be "don't run over friendly troops". I don't think it's such a bad thing to force vehicles to stay within the rules. Otherwise we'll see over-optimization in areas which won't make sense down the road, pardon the pun.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Shit I can do this better, haven't any of ya all played video games just keep building on success for one and bend the rules for another, no one said anything about how fast the human subject had to be going... nor anything about doing it safely. And yes a brick and a tank of gas on a card that flip and still drive will work fine.
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
Month-old babies don't run marathons, so why are we expecting their robot equivalents to do the same?
You must think in Russian.
people are not programs nor mathematical equations. The nice thing about human intelligence is its ability to see beyond what it already knows. aka "Creativity".
If one person among the teams discovers a better way to do things, and demonstrates its ability, then the better way will eventually win out, barring other unrelated issues like politics or egotistical ideologies. This is all the more likely to happen if its an environment of sharing and open minded thinking where new ideas aren't shunned. Practical autonomous robotics tends to be one of those areas (now theoretical, thats a different story...)
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HA HA HA HA
When I read the grandparent, I thought exactly the same thing! To the point. I wish politicians could do the same.
The difficult problems need to be presented outright at first, so you don't invest too much time in something that can solve simple issues, but fails utterly at more complex ones.
The ultimate goal of autonomous robotics is to develop a system that interacts with the real world at least as well as human, if not better.
If you start off with a simple challenge, you will get simple answers. For the next challenge, you ramp up the challenge some, and most will just modify the simple system. At some point though, you can't modify what is fundamentally flawed, and you have to throw it all away and start over.
Thats a huge waste of time and resources. If the teams recognizes the *tough* challenges from the outset, they're more likely to come up with a system that is flexible enough to handle them when the time and ability comes. Granted, you may spend more time developing that framework before you solve simple issues, but its worth it in the end.
Now the teams know what real-world issues they face. Their future systems will be much better equipped to handle them as they come along.
I suspect DARPA was well aware that this challenge could not be met. But the teams and technology are better off for it.
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I'm really losing patience with SlashDot. All I ever see are posts second guessing and negative sarcasm. Everyone's a critic or a comedian. I wouldn't hire anyone of you BIGTHINKERS!
Like what the average speed of the vehicles was? I thought I read somewhere, that the average speed "needed" to be about 15mph in order to successfully complete the challenge.
Also, I remember the first robot wars competitions (whatever battlebots was called before it got to TV). The winners were always the small wedge-shaped ones that still worked when flipped over and protected their wheels/axles. I'm wondering if there was a restriction that the vehicles could not be designed to operate upside-down?
Here's a very good
I suspect that the first industrialised nation that develops autonomous fighting machines will take over the world (or at least have a damn good go).
Pffft, some backward island nation will simply name a bumbling idiot General and he'll trip his way to victory against the mechanik's robot army...
You can't take the sky from me...
I do believe missile defense research is being
conducted by organizations different from those
that entered the DARPA race. For example, many
will have budgets over the tens of thousands
that many competitors were limited to. (At most,
there was about a $13M outlay for the entire
race.)
If you don't think this is a fair comparison,
consider: Can we land on the moon, and who
can land on the moon? Governments (e.g.,
NASA) can. Private companies cannot. If
a few small companies and college robot clubs
cannot land on the moon, does this mean that
it's beyond all possibility? Of course not.
Instead, what's lacking is the industrial
capacity in a private sector to create products
that perform this task. (That's why, for
example, we have the X-Prize--to promote
companies that invest in these technologies
and grow industries in this new sector.)
This is all part of something called "technology
transfer". Google on that term, and you'll
find a wealth of literature. The general idea
is that instead of spending upteen billions
to do something by itself, the government
offers a prize or competition, and industries
find proper incentive to create the technologies
themselves.
One aspect of the race that everyone seems to have taken in stride is that although DARPA would try to close the race course, "robots could still come into contact with humans"--this from the Wired article. I hope the speaker really meant "close proximity" to humans. I don't think I'd want to "come into contact" with several tons of stupid Hummer moving at up to 20mph in the middle of the desert. The next challenge should be a closed track.
"It is a desert environment and that is what future battlefields of the US will be," program manager Col Jose Negron said.
...
...Or does he know something that Ali Khamenei should probably guess?...
I guess North Korea and Taiwan can forget about US joining any UN peacekeeping intervention.
I am surprised that Col. Negron has no confidence the exit strategy from Iraq
Vapourware WMD hunt in Iran next presidential term anyone?
Seeing this was the first-of-its kind event, is the last bot out now a world recordholder for the distance it traveled? Maybe the 150ish miles goal was a bit too much to ask of the new technology, a bot that can travel 7 miles reliably has some use, just not as much as DARPA was hoping for.
Also, was there a particular barrier at the 7 mile point that did in the last two robots, or was it just coinsidence that they both stumbled within a mile of each other?
From http://www.grandchallenge.org/gallery/Day6.html
.5 miles, the vehicle was disabled.
Preliminary Data from DARPA Grand Challenge
As of 11:00 a.m. PST, March 13, 2004
Vehicle 22 - Red Team - At mile 7.4. Vehicle went off course, got caught on an obstacle and rubber on the front wheels caught fire, which was quickly extinguished. Vehicle has been disabled.
Vehicle 21- SciAutonicsII - At mile 6.7. Vehicle went into an embankment and became stuck. Vehicle has been disabled, and the team is recovering it.
Vehicle 5 - Team Caltech - At mile 1.3. Vehicle went through a fence, and couldn't come back through. Vehicle has been disabled, and the team is recovering it.
Vehicle 7 - Digital Auto Drive - At mile 6.0. Vehicle was paused to allow a wrecker to get through, and, upon restarting, sensors were not able to determine the proper route. After sensors tried unsuccessfully for three hours, vehicle was disabled.
Vehicle 25 - Virginia Tech - Vehicle brakes locked up in the start area. Vehicle has been removed from the course.
Vehicle 23 - Axion Racing - Vehicle circled the wrong way in the start area. Vehicle has been removed from the course.
Vehicle 2 - Team CajunBot - Vehicle brushed a wall on its way out of the chute. Vehicle has been removed from the course.
Vehicle 13 - Team ENSCO - Vehicle flipped in the start area, experienced a fuel leak, and the team needed to shut off the fuel. Vehicle has been removed from the course.
Vehicle 4 - Team CIMAR - At mile 0.45. Vehicle ran into some wire and got totally wrapped up in it. Vehicle has been disabled.
Vehicle 10 - Palos Verdes High School Road Warriors - Vehicle has been removed from the course - it hit a wall in the start area.
Vehicle 17 - SciAutonics I - At mile 0.75. Vehicle went off the route. After sensors tried unsuccessfully for 90 minutes to reacquire the route, without any movement, vehicle was disabled.
Vehicle 20 - Team TerraMax - Got to mile 1.2. Vehicle then started backing up and after
Vehicle 15 - Team TerraHawk - Withdrew prior to start.
Vehicle 9 - The Golem Group - At mile 5.2. Vehicle stopped. Vehicle had a throttle problem while going up a hill. After trying for 50 minutes, the vehicle was disabled.
Vehicle 16 - The Blue Team - Withdrew prior to start.
We have the knowlege base, enough people to pull together the funds... and it would appear... all the freekin answers too...
Why didn't anybody use the buggies or trucks that they use in the Baha 1000 races? I'd think those vehicles could take a better beating than many of the vehicles (i.e. stock SUVs, and ATVs) submitted. Since it seems like at least several of the teams had fairly good obstacle detection, it would seem that the only thing holding them up was the toughness of their equipment.
Preliminary Data from DARPA Grand Challenge
.5 miles, the vehicle was disabled.
As of 11:00 a.m. PST, March 13, 2004
Vehicle 22 - Red Team - At mile 7.4. Vehicle went off course, got caught on an obstacle and rubber on the front wheels caught fire, which was quickly extinguished. Vehicle has been disabled.
Vehicle 21- SciAutonicsII - At mile 6.7. Vehicle went into an embankment and became stuck. Vehicle has been disabled, and the team is recovering it.
Vehicle 5 - Team Caltech - At mile 1.3. Vehicle went through a fence, and couldn't come back through. Vehicle has been disabled, and the team is recovering it.
Vehicle 7 - Digital Auto Drive - At mile 6.0. Vehicle was paused to allow a wrecker to get through, and, upon restarting, sensors were not able to determine the proper route. After sensors tried unsuccessfully for three hours, vehicle was disabled.
Vehicle 25 - Virginia Tech - Vehicle brakes locked up in the start area. Vehicle has been removed from the course.
Vehicle 23 - Axion Racing - Vehicle circled the wrong way in the start area. Vehicle has been removed from the course.
Vehicle 2 - Team CajunBot - Vehicle brushed a wall on its way out of the chute. Vehicle has been removed from the course.
Vehicle 13 - Team ENSCO - Vehicle flipped in the start area, experienced a fuel leak, and the team needed to shut off the fuel. Vehicle has been removed from the course.
Vehicle 4 - Team CIMAR - At mile 0.45. Vehicle ran into some wire and got totally wrapped up in it. Vehicle has been disabled.
Vehicle 10 - Palos Verdes High School Road Warriors - Vehicle has been removed from the course - it hit a wall in the start area.
Vehicle 17 - SciAutonics I - At mile 0.75. Vehicle went off the route. After sensors tried unsuccessfully for 90 minutes to reacquire the route, without any movement, vehicle was disabled.
Vehicle 20 - Team TerraMax - Got to mile 1.2. Vehicle then started backing up and after
Vehicle 15 - Team TerraHawk - Withdrew prior to start.
Vehicle 9 - The Golem Group - At mile 5.2. Vehicle stopped. Vehicle had a throttle problem while going up a hill. After trying for 50 minutes, the vehicle was disabled.
Vehicle 16 - The Blue Team - Withdrew prior to start.
I would say that the grand challenge deserves a score of 15. After all, it stopped 15 competitors.
Maybe they should try something smaller next time.
Who else will protect innocent Muslims from other Muslims then???? France?
Just back in the door from watching this fantastic event. I was at the start and then at Daggett - but no-one made it that far. Although it was, in fairness, highly amusing when three vehicles in a row came out of the starting gates and plowed directly into the opposite wall without hesitating, overall these were amazing machines, and the fact that they even drove ten feet alone was a brilliant feat by itself.
But one with the mean-spirited fun-poking. I think the best moments (that we could see) were clearly the nice clean Palos Verde Acura hurtling into the wall wthout hesitation, the mostly-reversing although tremendsouly impressive TerraMax from Ohio State (well done chaps for frightening the rest of the pack), and the erratic go-stop-go-stop freakout from the Caltech crew. Most entertaining. Watching the TerraMax reverse s-l-o-w-l-y back down the course, only a mile out, at the oncoming Team Golem (who did very well indeed, thank you very much), was excellent, although I wonder if that helicopter it found itself close to had anything to do with its confusion.
They seem about the same.
Grand Challenge: Go to an area with lots of obstacles, and don't hit any of them.
Missile Defense: Go to an area with very few obstacles (the sky), and hit them.
Just apply a -1 in your algorithm.
I was at CMU watching the feed in McConomy Auditorium. We watched the feed (which was pathetic BTW) and the announcer said that Sandstorm had suffered engine failure. A cell phone call came shortly from students out in CA at the course. Apparently sandstorm ran over some object, it got caught in the undercarriage of the vehicle, and the axle fractured. This is what we were told, although I can not verify the exact details. Hope this helps out.
Wasnt the risk of undercarriage entanglement a considered issue from the start? It seems coating the underside in diamondplate would have at least let objects slide or be deflected away from the internal workings of the vehicle.
zork% mv *.asp
283 files eaten by a grue
It's not a straight line course, and it's not flat and barren. There are fences, rocks, ravines, coyotes that must be avoided, highway underpasses, etc. A set of GPS waypoints is given out as the official course, and must be followed.
Try reading something about it before asking stupid questions jackass.
--------
WAP hosting
You have to engineer the process of winning, not just the technology to win.
I worked on a solar powered race car that was to cross the country. Our superior car won the first few days, but eventually crashed.
I learned a lot more about team work and egos than I did about technology. The technology was there, the money was there, the open-minded cooperation was not there. The car was engineered very well, the win was not engineered at all.
These entrants suck.
Didn't they test out their vehicles to make sure they would complete the test before entering the competition? And why don't they use vehicles which can already do the job instead of creating some new untested crappy prototype?
Are they a bunch of f***ing morons? Obviously.
A borrowed tank from the U.S. military with no sensors installed, a full tank of gas, and the steering wheel jammed so it would only go straight would probably fare better.
Why don't these morons start with what works and go from there instead of reinventing crappy servo-motor controlled flaky robots?
Re-inventing the wheel and Not-Invented-Here syndrome is the only thing standing in the way of that million dollars.
How did we get our brakes locked up from the starting line?? UGH!!!
I read words like "pathetic" and "stupid" and I shiver. Someday when the robots look back at this event, and read your comments, they'll exterminate all of you and your decendents.
..but for mod points...
"Vehicle 7 - Digital Auto Drive - At mile 6.0. Vehicle was paused to allow a wrecker to get through, and, upon restarting, sensors were not able to determine the proper route. After sensors tried unsuccessfully for three hours, vehicle was disabled."
That just seems really unfortunate that it only failed when the officials forced it to stop.
My suspicion is that their sensor suite was ill-chosen. They had four line scanners, three fixed and one steerable. The fixed ones were aimed to the left, the right, and slightly upward. The steerable one was presumably aimed as far forward as it can get good data.
This sounds good, but it's not that effective a system. All of them were single-line scanners. So the vehicle has to assemble ground profiles from successive line scans. The hard-mounted units weren't stabilized, so they wouldn't produce good profiles beyond slow speeds. The long-range gimballed Reigl scanner was stabilized in three axes, but it's still a line scanner. It only gets one chance to see any point on the ground, and it sees it at maximum range and at the most oblique angle possible, the worst possible condition. Any problems, and you have to slow down and try to use the gimbal to pick up the missing data. Or you can just go plowing ahead, which is apparently what they did.
I think this establishes that line scanners aren't going to solve this problem. CMU had the fanciest single-line scanner ever built, and they crashed into a very clear obstacle. CMU was more successful in the 1980s with a 3D laser rangefinder on the Navlab project. That unit was too slow for this event, but was the right idea.
We'd been through this analysis a year ago on Team Overbot, and knew we needed something better. We know what's needed, but couldn't get it built in time. Our custom laser rangefinder vendor went out of business, and the alternative vendor couldn't deliver in time. Next time.
CMU's race log is silent about this. Their last entry ends "We can win this. Spare nothing. Victory or demise."
It beats that "dead" feeling you get when you lose" - Buffy
"Well, jumping isn't a great things, as it would make the vehicle that much more obvious/visible. DARPA isn't trying to have something invented that looks cool or "just works", it has to serve a purpose."
Works well for the kangaroo, and can carry grenades in it's pouch.
So why isn't fuzzy logic and neural nets (with a smidge of GA) being used?
for shame
This is pretty late--I just got back from the race--and probably no one will notice but I feel like adding it anyway...what I found most striking was that of the four entrants that made any substantial progress, two (CMU, SciAutonics) were big teams, well-organized, lots of resources, etc, and two (DAD, Golem) were, if not exactly homebrew, definitely down toward the lets-just-get-this-shit-together end of the scale. Go hobbyists! DAD was particularly interesting because one, their pit consisted of a robot sitting there waiting to go out, rather than the trailers, RVs, computers, antennas, jump-suited techs, and so on that filled most of the other ones; and two, the end of their race only came after they were stopped, deliberately, by race officials, in order to let a tow truck get up to one of the disabled vehicles up ahead. They weren't able to get it started again in the field. Now of course that's something your autonomous vehicle ought to be able to handle, but still you have to wonder, if they'd had a free course...? The Golem guys get mad props for their enthusiasm, which dwarfed anyone else I saw out there...their vehicle had been totally flailing in the quals, and one guy I talked to said they were hacking away til ten minutes before they got the route (around 4 am). They were totally thrilled when it got through the first gate and across the road, and it was quite infectious, especially since no one had even gotten that far since DAD in the fourth position (Golem was fourteenth, second to last).
I was disappointed not to see TerraHawk (the other Terra) run...it was intriguing but I didn't find out much about it cause I was hanging around while they were really busy trying to fix something (which I guess didn't happen--they scratched themselves before start). Ghostrider was unfortunate too, I was really interested to see it run and the crowd was too. And it ran...a foot. And fell over. Technical letdown, but points for drama. Rumor I heard was, though, that it failed for some really silly reason--wire not plugged in, switch not switched on, something like that. I don't know if they tried another run (a number of vehicles did second, non-competing starts later in the day), but if it was something like that I hope they took another shot.
Really cool overall, though of course it would have been nice to see a bit more performance on the field. Even if everyone failed, strictly speaking, there was a lot of impressive stuff in everything from mechanics to AI. I have no doubt everybody learned a lot and that they'll all kick ass next time around.
maybe next time there should be a team that electroshocks a horse to coax it in the right direction... Is there a rule against cruelty to animals?
with some cleverness (meaning, you really know your math), you can make many non-linear problems work adequately with it. Though possibly non-optimal, "good enough".
-
Did anyone else think of CARR from Knight Rider? I could just imagine CARR saying that after attempting to negotiate the course. He wasn't the brightest compared to KITT.
I think the idea of the GC was good, but this was the wrong task. Autonomous vehicles are a hard problem, but the focus isn't really on the AI anymore, it's on the engineering. Path planning and obstacle avoidance are two old AI warhorses. They still need work -- but they've been carefully examined for years. If you're going to look for outside-the-box solutions to hard problems, you should use problems that are new to the field (robust, general manipulation, perhaps).
I don't want to put down the efforts of any of the GC teams -- I think it's great that they're working on it, and I wish them luck in the future. But this was a contest where all the most qualified teams couldn't participate. So is it fair to say that this is the best that AI can do? Not even close.
That's KARR. Knight's Automated Roving Robot.
I predict that after a few more wars, that will be revised to something like "somewhere along the line, people have to go in and secure the ground."
if you're designing delivery systems for the US military, I think you've already lost the moral high ground.
The U.S. military has put a stop to this and this. If you're designing systems that make the U.S. military more effective, you're standing firmly on the moral high ground.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
I'm gonna build robots and send them around the world to kill foreigners and steal their oil!
...you insensitive clod.
But they're not "war machines". They're, uh, "patriotic robo-Americans".
SUVs vary greatly these days.
For example, a course that an '89 Mitsubishi Montero or an older (pre-SUV-fad) Toyota Land Cruiser, or Red Team's Hummer (not the H2 Fake Hummer) would have no trouble with would most likely be impassable for an Acura MDX. (oops... Sorry PVHS, BAD vehicle choice...)
SciAutonics probably had one of the best base vehicles that I have seen pictures of so far - Their vehicle was even better suited to off-road travel than Red Team's Hummer, and it looked like it was a jacked-up dune buggy. (i.e. a common and standard design.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Do a Google search for "Moab Jeep Safari" (Might be Easter Jeep Safari).
The EJS uses a trail rating from Class 1 to Class 5 (at least used to, it may have changed.)
FYI, Moab, UT is pretty much in the desert.
Class 1 is basically a paved road
Class 5 is defined as "25% of vehicles suffer catastrophic failure". That is AFTER excluding "stock" vehicles - which the trail ratings reccommend staying on class 3.5 and below trails.
I fully agree, as someone who is on vacation in the desert (Borrego Springs State Park in California, about 3 hours south of Barstow where the race began), desert offroading is NOT easy. Even on the 4x4 "roads", there are sections that are challenging for a human driver with a stock vehicle. Leave the "roads" (often nothing more than a dried stream bed) and even the most heavily modified ORVs will have trouble on much of the terrain.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Even if they had Red Team's expertise and electronics, chances are their Acura MDX (a luxury SUV, inherently NOT a good off-road vehicle) would not have made it as far as Red Team's HMMMV or SciAutonics' dune buggy. Hell, even with a human driver, an MDX would probably not have been able to finish the race.
Also, even with a human driver, even some of the best offroad vehicles are prone to mechanical failure in the wrong terrain. (Trust me, the deserts of California and Nevada meet the classifcation of the "wrong terrain" in many cases.) For example, the Moab Easter Jeep Safari rates some of their trails as "25% of vehicles suffer catastrophic failure" - This is with heavily modified offroad vehicles driven by experienced drivers. The terrain can simply be Just Plain Nasty.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Take a trip to the Mojave. Or Anza-Borrego Desert State Park three hours south.
There's a hell of a lot more than cacti to do serious damage to an ORV. The lack of vegetation means that rainstorms almost always bring flash floods, which means that there are some insane erosion patterns, plus large boulders scattered randomly about.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
here
Summary:
It was a broken axle that did it.
The mapping helped.
The crash from 2 weeks ago had a negative impact.
They claim they could race again today. We'll see how ready they are next year.
The only reason all cover-ups appear to fail is that you never hear about the ones that succeed.
Final Data from DARPA Grand Challenge
As of 5:00 p.m. PST, March 13, 2004
Vehicle 22 - Red Team - At mile 7.4, on switchbacks in a mountainous section, vehicle went off course, got caught on a berm and rubber on the front wheels caught fire, which was quickly extinguished. Vehicle was command-disabled.
Vehicle 21- SciAutonicsII - At mile 6.7, two-thirds of the way up Daggett Ridge, vehicle went into an embankment and became stuck. Vehicle was command-disabled.
Vehicle 5 - Team Caltech - At mile 1.3, vehicle veered off course, went through a fence, tried to come back on the road, but couldn't get through the fence again. Vehicle was command-disabled.
Vehicle 7 - Digital Auto Drive - At mile 6.0, vehicle was paused to allow a wrecker to get through, and, upon resuming motion, vehicle was hung up on a football-sized rock. Vehicle was command-disabled.
Vehicle 25 - Virginia Tech - Vehicle brakes locked up in the start area. Vehicle was removed from the course.
Vehicle 23 - Axion Racing - Vehicle circled the wrong way in the start area. Vehicle was removed from the course.
Vehicle 2 - Team CajunBot - Vehicle brushed a wall on its way out of the chute. Vehicle has been removed from the course.
Vehicle 13 - Team ENSCO - Vehicle moved out smartly, but, at mile 0.2, when making its first 90-degree turn, the vehicle flipped. Vehicle was removed from the course.
Vehicle 4 - Team CIMAR - At mile 0.45, vehicle ran into some wire and got totally wrapped up in it. Vehicle was command-disabled.
Vehicle 10 - Palos Verdes High School Road Warriors - Vehicle hit a wall in the start area. Vehicle was removed from the course.
Vehicle 17 - SciAutonics I - At mile 0.75, vehicle went off the route. After sensors tried unsuccessfully for 90 minutes to reacquire the route, without any movement, vehicle was command-disabled.
Vehicle 20 - Team TerraMax - Several times, the vehicle sensed some bushes near the road, backed up and corrected itself. At mile 1.2, it was not able to proceed further. Vehicle was command-disabled.
Vehicle 15 - Team TerraHawk - Withdrew prior to start.
Vehicle 9 - The Golem Group - At mile 5.2, while going up a steep hill, vehicle stopped on the road, in gear and with engine running, but without enough throttle to climb the hill. After trying for 50 minutes, the vehicle was command-disabled.
Vehicle 16 - The Blue Team - Withdrew prior to start.
In case you don't want to wade through the CNN footage, here is the Ghost Rider in all sub-second of it's glory. It covered a total of maybe 5 feet.