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DARPA Grand Challenge Teams Submit Videos to DARPA
doughnuthole writes "The deadline for DARPA Grand Challenge teams to submit their videos to DARPA just passed and some have posted them online. Some of the teams with these videos posted are Team Caltech, Axion Racing, Virginia Tech (on the Media page), Insight Racing, and UMass Dartmouth. The Grand Challenge is a 175 mile race run by fully autonomous vehicles. Since no teams completed the 2004 race, DARPA decided to run it again, this time for $2 million."
I think this is pretty cool and all as an engineering effort, but what specific purpose does this have?
I think that the government is secretly trying to create an army of autonomous pizza delivery drones. So long as you live in the desert, one of these few complex machines crafted by some of the world's best and brightest might get you your pizza within 30 minutes or less.
This thing is the SportsMobile from Team Caltech: just imagine the advances in science if Snoop Dogg had entered the DARPA Grand Challenge! Pimpin' hard but somebody's gotta do it I guess...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Interesting that the DARPA Challenge rule precludes hovercrafts from competing as they do not primarily use traction with the ground for propulsion.
I hope a team enters with a very large metal hollow sphere with gear teethmarks lining the inside and the machinery be a shaft, gyroscope and gears on both ends of unequal weight. The rest of the contents can be fuel/energy cells to power the rotating motion of the machinery inside -- it essentially just has to "throw" itself in a direction and keep rolling and steering. Travelling 175 miles ought to be possible as long as the terrain isn't ridiculous.
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A load of drone cars should be driven behind these competitors with models of druglords with machine guns, outlaws, corrupt police officers, and people to whom the teams own money.
That way, they should be able to defy gravity enough to land from a great height at a mere 30 degrees to the horizontal without breaking their suspension or driveshafts, and continue to turn even after front side collisions which would leave bushes and pinions bent (or wheels set to cambers which would normally cause them to no longer turn). They might even get speed boosts beyond the maximum engineering speed expected for the motor, gas and gearbox actually installed.
For an added bonus, they could have critically wounded people in the back, and an accomplice who absolutely has to jump out at 40mph somewhere mid course in order to continue some secret mission.
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What DARPA wants is a combat-ready system that can drive cross-country with little or no outside help.
Different problems, and they require different solutions, and a system that could pass the DARPA test would be overkill and unsuitable for the daily commute to work.
I suppose that depends on what one considers a combat zone; dealing with "drivers" who are busy eating a bagel, reading the paper, drinking coffee, talking on a cell phone, shaving, and putting on makeup might require a combat-ready system.
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I feel sorry for that poor StackWorks website :(
/./././././-*boom*
one of the major problems last year was the enormous amount of time spent on sensor and hardware development vs. the incredibly small amount of time spent on software development and testing. ... with no collision detection code (!)
I'm guessing what they really need is physics processing unit(s) with player/missle graphics.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
I hope the DAD team wins too. Just imagine, the geeks who made this system will be able to brag to all their friends that their DAD drives them everywhere and not be laughed at anymore.
How we know is more important than what we know.
This is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. In case every forgot , their job is to kill people more efficiently. I seriously doubt any amount of money sunk into this will enable robots to kill more than humans on america's highways. What does the military need a robo-car for anyway?
No matter where you go , there you are.