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DARPA Announces Grand Challenge 2005
An anonymous reader writes "The Grand Challenge 2005 Date has been announced for October 8, 2005. Check out DARPA's official webpage for details. Already several teams from last year are gearing up: Carnegie Mellon Red Team, D.A.D., and Cal Tech. Also, several new teams are entering, among them Stanford, and Florida Tech. Should be a very interesting Challenge next year!"
"Should be a very interesting Challenge next year!" ...more so if anyone finishes
...the 2005 challenge will involve creating autonomous vehicles that can navigate one mile along a flat, empty highway with a clearly marked, solid center strip. The vehicles will have one week to navigate the course
This way to the egress...
This year: Make a robot that will successfully find a parking spot at the mall!
When's the contest going to be held to see who can build the smartest engineer?
Jean Kumagai has a nice article (with pictures) on the 2004 race in this month's IEEE Spectrum Magazine
"Just once, I'd like to meet an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets." -- The Brigadier, Dr. Who
a big garage, a spare '67 IH Scout 800, a laptop I could trash, assorted robotics parts, and a month or two paid time off (or better yet- sponsored by my work)... I just *know* I could get out of the parking lot...
I've actually seen something very similar to this before, I believe that they should be able to actually do this. At a local college near me I watched as the robotics team ran their robot through an obstacle course by having it follow a nice little line using an optical sensor... So I think this challenge will be possible, although not easy to do for one mile. But even if noone actually does claim the prize and finish... it is the fact that you learn something from the experience and hopefully that experience can be put to good use that's important... isn't it?
just build the machine itself to be relatively indestructable- handling any terrain. Say with four wheels large enough to be completely invertable and floatable. Then just add a GPS unit and skid steering, and some simple logic to try 4 times, then rotate 90 degrees, run for 100 feet, rotate back 90 degrees, and try again, recursively, plus seek out pregrogrammed destination co-ordinates. Make it go up to 60 MPH to make up time when it doesn't have any barriers to get around, and let it go. It might not take the straightest route, but it will get there eventually- kind of like my 1-year-old's bumble ball robot that has no brains at all, just a gyroscope and bumpers to keep it moving in random directions.
Even better yet- a huge bumble ball with GPS locator to tell us where it is- just drop it into ANY terrain, and it will bounce around until it gets where it wants to be.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
The team that completes the Grand Challenge 2005 route within a specified time will receive a cash prize of $2 million, an increase from the $1 million prize offered at last year?s event.
In the first DARPA Grand Challenge, held on a desert route from California to Nevada, 15 teams from a field of 106 applicants progressed to the final event
Why increase the prize to $2M? If the goal of the challenge is to develop an autonomous vehicle, why not use the extra $1M as a grant to fund the top 15 teams from the last challenge.
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
As a proud dropout of Florida Tech, I'd just like to point out that the "Florida Tech" link goes to an article about the University of Florida. If Florida Tech is competting, I wish them all the best luck. Here's the correct link to their website: www.fit.edu
This topic, although w/ slightly different wording has been chewed and swallowed/spat out couple of days ago...
the same spooks that want to identify terrorists by how they walk?
No, they're the ones who created the Internet. You know, that thing you're using right now. Plus, they happen to be a huge supporter of scientific research and development. Given the fact that industry has slashed R&D in favor of raising the quarterly reports by a half a percentage point or giving the members of the Board an ivory backscratcher as an annual bonus, let's not be too quick to insult one of the few remaining patrons of science.
GMD
watch this
Are non-American citizens allowed to participate? I tried looking at the Rules Page but it's not up yet. I don't recall if there was a stipulation which restricted participants to American citizens.
Given DARPA's great R&D track record in the past (Internet and what not), I would've liked to participate in the contest *purely* from a scientific curiousity point of view - and I bet a lot of nerds all over the world would like to overlook the fact that the contest is sponsored by a military agency (prize not withstanding - since it's US taxpayer money). Just as long as DARPA lives up to it's name and does not morph into OARPA - it's happened way too many times in the past.
Incidentally, the link to the official page is incorrect on that page. The site linked to in the article seems to be just a mirror of the darpa.mil site, however.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
I can't wait to see all the new automated field medic designs. Wait, why does that one have a big gun sticking out of the top....
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
DARPA is the central research and development organization for the Department of Defense (DoD). The Agency manages and directs basic and applied research and development projects for DoD, and pursues research and technology where the risk and payoff are both very high and where success may provide dramatic advances for traditional military roles and missions.(emphasis mine)
This mission statement is important because it emphasizes that DARPA was specifically designed to fund research into hard problems. In fact, the catch-phrase "DARPA-hard problem" has surfaced as a shorthand way of labeling high-risk, high-payoff problems. A lot of people seem to be having fun laughing about the fact that none of the vehicles in this year's race came close to finishing. But as I pointed out above, that certainly doesn't make this contest a failure by any stretch of the imagination. This is a DARPA-hard problem. Certainly no private company is going to fund something like this. The risk is just too high. Really, DARPA is one of the few entities that has the resources to put on an annual contest like this.
From some of the comments posted here there seems to be the idea that because DARPA is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency that we have to dislike them. I disagree. Sure, DARPA has future warfare in mind. But so many technologies developed for military use end up in the private sector anyhow. It would be pointless to list them all. Let's not look a gift-horse in the mouth. DARPA is willing to fund science and scientists are willing to work on their problems. I don't see what the problem is. Do you guys think that if scientists stop doing DARPA work that suddenly conflict in the world is going to stop and everyone is going to join hands and sing "We are the world"? Sometimes I think people complain just because the like to complain.
GMD
watch this
Thats what Id try anyway. I'd fail miserably, but wouldnt building a mechanical cheetah b e lots of fun.
Mods - look for troll-bait inside of parent post.
First off, returning teams already have a foundation to build upon, both in existing hardware and in technical experience. Writing software for a race like this is almost impossible to do without testing it on a working vehicle (i.e. testing in simulation only works out major problems, but does not translate well to desert racing). For example, Caltech spent 6 months getting actuators and drivers to work well enough to hand over the vehicle to the software team. As soon as that happened, we noticed several problems interfacing the actuators to the software (e.g. updating actuator positions too fast locked them up and made them stop responding). Ultimately our vehicle was not even waypoint following accurately until late February. Most teams were in the same state we were in - racing the clock, plagued by bad hardware (sensors and actuators) and inexperience. BUT we were very close to being very good. If they re-ran the race mid-summer this year the results from all of the teams would be very different. Looking to next year, teams have working vehicles which means 1 full year of onsite testing instead of 2 months.
Another thing that is interesting about the next race is the timing relative to academic calendars. A lot of teams are university driven and it was very difficult for students to devote enough time to the project while still handling their school requirements (definitely true with a Caltech workload). The next race is at the very end of the summer which means that a crew can work on the vehicle full time for three months before the next race.
Whether or not someone wins the next race is entirely up to DARPA. By next year there will be 5+ teams that could navegate last-race's course in
Anyway, good luck to all teams...especially new teams - you have quite a hurdle in front of you. See you in 1 year.
Based on what I see every day on my commute, it would be a tough enough challenge to have a manned vehicle complete this task.
Maybe if you would get off your goddamn phone you wouldn't be swerving into my lane!!
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.