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Will There Be A Winning Autonomous Robot in 2005?

Posted by timothy on from the time-for-a-darpa-change dept.

An anonymous reader submits "This summer is heating up the DARPA Grand Challenge as multiple top notch schools begin to announce their entry into the competition. The newest organization to announce its entry was the Florida Institute of Technology. Their project is known as Oasis - Autonomous Racing, and they have a team of over 45 students, professors, and advisors that are currently hard at work designing their vehicle and raising funds to pay for it. The DARPA Grand Challenge is a race between vehicles that should be designed to travel up to 300 miles in less than 10 hours through the desert or other harsh medium without any human interaction. The 2005 competition has a $2 million grand prize as authorized by congress. With all of the new entrants does anyone think that the competition will be won the second time around?"

4 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. Doubtful by 7Ghent · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well, considering that the best performer for this year didn't even make 15 miles, I'm hopeful that someone will actually complete the course, but not in under 10 hours.

    1. Re:Doubtful by ciroknight · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I don't doubt it for a minute. Being a Florida Tech freshman in the fall, I want to try to get involved with this project. I've worked on stereo optics systems before using two webcams and I can tell you that this kind of system holds great promise at winning the race. In combination with great laser range-finding and possibly optical range finding (something like us humans do), even acustical systems, a machine has just as good of a chance to pilot a car as it can an aircraft or anything else.

      Another thing: use the 2d images to build a 3d map on the fly, approximenting object sizes by finding the edges of the object in the pictures, and you should be able to navigate around and over them quite easily. The car also plays a key roll; it needs to be adapted into a dune buggy of sorts; huge soft tires and great suspension.
      Scary that we're working on this for the government though..

      --
      "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
    2. Re:Doubtful by rmohr02 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Ohio State had a team that entered this year, and they worked on their entry right next to the workspace of a project team I'm a part of. I heard, albeit secondhand, why most entries didn't work, and the only real reason is that the teams were unfamiliar with the course (e.g., Columbus doesn't exactly have a large desert to test the entry in).

      A couple nights before the competition was to take place, it rained on the "course", as it is. Thus, there were many relatively large bushes in the desert when the competition started. This was not something most teams had planned for--however, they did plan for large rocks. Thus, a 9' tall truck would drive up to a (now relatively small) bush, detect it, determine it was a rock, and then try to plot a course around it rather than simply driving through it, which would have worked fine. With the number of bushes that had sprouted up, it was only a matter of time before a truck's computer got swamped trying to avoid all of the "rocks".

      I look forward to hearing about next year's competition, for which I'm sure teams will think to find a way of differentiating a bush and a rock.

  2. Short answer... by sinner0423 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    No. Last time a good 30%, I believe, didn't even make it out the gate. I seriously doubt any of them will "win". Well, I'm sure they're all winners, like in the special olympics, but i don't think they will FINISH the course.