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DARPA Announces 2005 Grand Challenge Semifinalists
Mockingbird writes "DARPA announced 40 semifinalists for the 2005 Grand Challenge autonomous robot race today. Notable remaining teams include the Carnegie Mellon University Red Team, Stanford Racing and a high school team, the Palos Verde Road Warriors. 78 teams missed the cut. The race, which will take place on Oct. 8, 2005 features a $2 million prize for the first team whose robot crosses 175 miles of the Mojave in under ten hours. The robots must be fully autonomous, with no team intervention allowed once the vehicle is launched. The first race was held in 2003, when the most successful team managed to log only 7.4 miles."
Today's Indianapolis Star. The mention of Scott Jones - the guy who invented voicemail - has a good project background.
People have been coming from all over the state (literally) to work on the project (just down the road a piece) on a very regular basis, just for the fun of it.
I've talked to several people who have been tinkering with it and are having a good time. Sometimes, bordering on obsession.
You need to look at the footage from the last attempts that showed how easily they become stranded on top of fence-posts. You wouldn't think it was possible to destroy a heavy vehicle like that, but a human will back off when hearing the gearbox squeal - not a computer. The vision stuff is an absolute nightmare - any sensor is better than vision. It sure is a serious challenge. I expect maybe 30 miles this time?
There's a zillion ways to destroy a heavy vehicle, or parts thereof. Drivetrain seems to be a weak point in many offroad vehicles.
Your post just says to me, add some mics and some audio processing! When you drive, you listen to the car. You learn what's normal for a given speed or condition, and any waveform that's out of sync flags an error. You stop, look around, back up, and try something else. I had to explain this to friend of mine the other day - it had never occured to her to listen to a engine (or transmission) to hear the load.
If you really don't like audio, run a calc against axle speeds, engine RPM, clutch slip, figure out how much torque is where, and back off when something's close to breaking.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
The Golem I last year finished fourth, travelling 5.2 miles. It had the lowest budget of only $35,000 dollars (whereas some other teams' have a reputed budget of over a million...). And based on this image here, what I believe makes it uber-awesome is that they are cheating the competition by installing an elf under the hood and letting him drive.