DARPA Grand Challenge Finalists Announced

Xerotope writes "DARPA announced today the 23 finalists[pdf warning] of the DARPA Grand Challenge at the closing ceremonies of the National Qualifying Event. Carnegie Mellon University's Red Team will start on Saturday with the first and third positions, with 'H1ghlander' taking the pole position and 'Sandstorm' following 10 minutes later. Stanford's 'Stanley' will start second. Of the 43 semi-finalists, 23 robots managed to finish the 2.2 mile course at least once. 5 robots (Stanford, Red Team, Red Team Too, Axion Racing, and Team Teramax) completed all of their runs. CMU's 'H1ghlander' and 'Sandstorm' finished the four runs with an average time of 10 minutes, 20 seconds each. Stanford's Stanley average time was 10:43."

Comments

Now just slap a cyberthalamus in

[Fen14]

And you have a sentient robot car. But you gotta make a cyberthalamus first.

Terminator or Explorer?

[digitaldc]

The question is...Will this technology be used primarily for unmanned military weapons? Or, will it be used in a more gentile fashion to explore hostile environments such as the Moon, Mars and the other planets?
Let's hope this technology will be used to advance our understanding of our planet and the universe.

Re:Terminator or Explorer?

[exi1ed0ne]

The answer to what use they will put this to: Whatever they can get away with.

Re:Terminator or Explorer?

[bigman2003]

Actually, I think the real question is:

"How long until the UN and EU assert control over all of these inventions...and expect the United States to manufacture them for free, under the banner of human rights?"

That's what I wonder...

Re:Terminator or Explorer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well golly, since the whole thing is sponsored by DARPA, an agency of the US Department of Defense, I think they'll use this technology to ^(80948Q#4NO CARRIER

Re:Terminator or Explorer?

[SpyPlane]

I don't know about these being used as unmanned 'weapons', but certainly the military will use them for transport vehicles. The real reason for this competition was to create technology that would save lives. This is even more appropriate now that a majority of deaths over in Iraq are due to road side bombs. Right now, weapon control systems will still have a human somewhere in the loop.

Re:Terminator or Explorer?

[Have Blue]

Hopefully it will go into the scientific community and then onto the open market, where it can be used by any party for any purpose.

Re:Terminator or Explorer?

[Moofie]

"more gentile fashion"

Wait a second. "Gentile"? Like, as in, non-Jewish?

Re:Terminator or Explorer?

[Zathrus]

Will this technology be used primarily for unmanned military weapons?

This phase is intentionally designed for developing unmanned transport vehicles for use in low/no traffic, rugged areas. Think resupply and medivac. That alone would vastly reduce support overhead and threat to support troops (who generally aren't wandering around in heavily armored vehicles like front line troops).

It's not designed for use as a weapons platform (there is no ability to determine threats or potential targets), nor for usage on other planets -- all of the vehicles make use of GPS to some degree (they can operate without, but are handicapped) and we don't exactly have constellations of sats flying around any other stellar bodies.

The military isn't particularly interested in completely autonomous weapon systems -- it's too damn dangerous to your own people. The last thing you need is an autonomous anti-tank or anti-infantry mis-identifying your own (or your allies) weapons/troops as targets and eliminating them. We have enough friendly fire problems with humans at the controls -- and robots are far, far behind humans when it comes to properly identifying things.

There's plenty of civilian uses too -- another reply already mentioned a good number of them.

Re:Terminator or Explorer?

[Kozz]

This phase is intentionally designed for developing unmanned transport vehicles for use in low/no traffic, rugged areas. Think resupply and medivac. That alone would vastly reduce support overhead and threat to support troops (who generally aren't wandering around in heavily armored vehicles like front line troops).

Well, that sounds good, in theory. Now I admittedly don't know what sort of AI or algorithms these autonomous vehicles are using to navigate and make "decisions", but if you've got an unmanned vehicle with supplies (read: easy target), it would still need to be protected from "abduction". I'd imagine a vehicle like this would probably stop cold if surrounded (360 degrees of obstacles) by other vehicles, at which point the abductees could take what's inside, and leave. Unless this vehicle is also accompanied by manned and armed escorts. And at that point, why not just give the escorts a remote control, rather than all that fancy AI/computer gear?

Then again, I'm not any sort of military strategist, nor do I really know anything about the battlefield. But it seems to me that military uses wouldn't be the best choice for this hypothetical tool. Or am I overlooking the solutions to these problems I've mentioned above?

Re:Terminator or Explorer?

[Stonehand]

Yeah, you could do pretty interesting things with it.

Combine it with a rental system, for instance -- and have it meet you at your doorstep and drive you to your destination. And then drive itself back to to wherever it next needs to be.

One could also see it being useful for the elderly -- those with poor eyesight or reflexes, and who don't want to have to depend on somebody else to drive them. Ditto for others not able to drive themselves. Maybe you won't need designated drivers anymore.

Theoretically, an autonomous vehicle should be able to pick up one's kids and drive them elsewhere if it's scheduled (time and location) and the parents are both busy, but I have my doubts as to whether this would be a good thing to do.

Re:Terminator or Explorer?

[Scrameustache]

technology that would save lives. This is even more appropriate now that a majority of deaths over in Iraq are due to road side bombs.

No.

A majority of U.S. casualties are due to road side bombs.
The majority of deaths in Iraq is no that of U.S. forces, however.

Maybe the technology will save soldier's lives, but it will mostly free up soldier's time to go shoot at those people you don't even count as "lives".

Re:Terminator or Explorer?

[TheGavster]

Theoretically, an autonomous vehicle should be able to pick up one's kids and drive them elsewhere if it's scheduled (time and location) and the parents are both busy, but I have my doubts as to whether this would be a good thing to do.

I can see a movie around the idea of someone reprogramming people's cars (yay bluetooth hacks!) to deliver their children to a sweatshop: it's got everything, fear of technology, the opportunity for some wicked robot car chase scenes ...

Re:Terminator or Explorer?

[mother pussbucket]

Just like the a-bomb.

Manhattan project scientist: "but we never thought they'd use it..."

Funking dipsticks.

Re:Terminator or Explorer?

[Schaffner]

"The question is...Will this technology be used primarily for unmanned military weapons? Or, will it be used in a more gentile fashion to explore hostile environments such as the Moon, Mars and the other planets?"

Actually, I think most uses will be for gentile purposes; unless the Israeli's get involved. :-)

Re:Terminator or Explorer?

[seven of five]

will it be used in a more gentile fashion

Jews want to put robots into space?

Re:Terminator or Explorer?

[Zathrus]

because nasty terrorist hands are burned by the righteous grips of the M-16

Yes, because I implied that. Note that I said that you wouldn't want to ship the guns as well.

And yes, you could use the ammo in jury rigged bombs... but there's not much in a casing, or even a clip. It's a horrendously inefficient way to make an explosive. There are household chemicals you can combine to have far more explosive power in far less space.

The stuff you don't want them getting are the bombs, artillary shells, tank shells, etc. -- those have extremely potent chemical explosives that aren't easily manufacturered, but can easily be "repurposed" (often without even bothering to crack the shell).

Yes, those terrorists are so damn stupid they don't realize the value of water, food, and medical supplies.

The medical supplies may very well be needed (especially US military grade ones), but they're generally not in dire need of food or water. Not enough to expend the kind of resources required to stop a convoy. As for cutting the supply lines -- yes, it's basic tactics. It's also utterly ineffective against a modern army in these circumstances. We can easily airlift supplies to the troops if necessary, and supply convoys are so numerous that they simply cannot cut off enough to significantly harm the forces -- not without exposing themselves drastically.

And if only we stopped filling our all our supply transports with people, and only had a couple drivers in each truck, they wouldn't attack any more, because they only care about causalties

Sure they'd attack, but it would be ineffective. And they'd be wasting resources on taking out unmanned vehicles which have very little value -- even monetarily, it'd be cheaper in the long run to use unmanned supply trucks than it would be to up armor and provide security for all of them. Not to mention the enlisted men that you free for other duties. Not to mention the reduced political and resource costs that would come from fewer people dieing.

Here's a quick hint: action movies and the crap shows on Fox and SpikeTV are not neccesarily accurate depictions of warfare.

That's nice. I don't watch either channel.

Re:Terminator or Explorer?

[James.Stanton]

It's not designed for use as a weapons platform (there is no ability to determine threats or potential targets), nor for usage on other planets -- all of the vehicles make use of GPS to some degree (they can operate without, but are handicapped) and we don't exactly have constellations of sats flying around any other stellar bodies.

Not yet anyway: Red Planet Wayfinder: A GPS System for Mars. Don't think these guys (meaning the current US administration) aren't going to weaponize everything they can get their hands on.

Ghost Rider

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad Ghost Rider did not make it. :( Check it out http://www.ghostriderrobot.com/

Re:Ghost Rider

[MatD]

While I had hoped that it would make it, those hopes weren't very high. Using a two wheeeled vehicle instead of a four wheel vehicle just adds needless compilications to the whole thing. A four (or three) wheeled vehicle can stop where it is while it tries to determine terrain etc. A two wheeled vehicle has to keep moving. If it wants to go backwards, it has to circle around.

Even though they didn't make it, hats off to 'em.

Go ENSCO!

[JMUChrisF]

Go Team Ensco! Great job so far guys! Keep it up!

www.teamensco.com

More information and Video coverage here

[rayver]

Video coverage here (there's a whole bunch. The overview, stanley and ghostrider ones are awesome!):

http://www.cartv.com.nyud.net:8090/content/researc h/channels/index.cfm/channel/cartv_video/action/sh owvideo/vid/e_0145/vcat/Event/
NQE final paper:

http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/NQEfinal1.pdf

And more announcements can be found on:

http://www.grandchallenge.org/

Also, a good summary of things that have been happening can be found in the discussion forum:

https://dtsn.darpa.mil/grandc/forum/topic.asp?topi c_id=1636&forum_id=30&Topic_Title=NQE&forum_title= Grand+Challenge+Event&M=False&S=

=====
A post by Espina reads:
Hi! ...stopped by the NQE last week and this whole Tuesday and I must say that all the work accomplished on all the AGVs was very impressive. ...for those who couldn't be there the following bots all had runs in the morning session: "Mojavaton, DAD, CIMAR, Insight Racing, Golem Group, ENSCO, Princeton, MonsterMoto, Team Jefferson, UCF,, AION, Cajunbot, Banzai, Gray Team, Mitre Meteorites, Virginia Tech Grand Challenge Team, Austin Robot, Desert Buckeyes." All had full runs except five. Majavaton and Insight Racing which both collided with a vehicle/obstacle within 100 yards of the finish line. Aion decided to skip the course and circle back directly to the finish line but a K- rail barrier refused to co-operate. The UCF bot went walkabout on the back 40 towards the NASCAR track and Austin Robotics got sulky in the first loop when the crowd left for lunch during its run. MonsterMoto was given a restart because a chase truck encroached on the route near the start. ...according to some team members from Ensco, the afternoon session was a chance for the teams "on the cusp" to improve their standings. Austin Robotics, CajunBot, VT, Team Banzai, Mojavaton, the Mitre Group, and the Gray Team all had additional runs. ...Mojavaton, VT, Mitre (had two) and the Gray Team all had full runs. The Gray Team had two runs but was unable to to get GPS back after the tunnel on the first run so they made a few adjustments and had a stellar 2nd run. It seemed like a time/constelation problem. CajunBot made it to the last Obstacle/vehicle to the chagrin of the crowd. Team Banzai froze contemplating a witch's hat on a downhill transition at the end of the first loop and Austin Robotics lost GPS (and its way) after the tunnel... ...after that the best of the rest ran (Autonosys, Blue Team, Overbot, Indiana Robotic NAV, BJB Engineering, Team Juggernaut, Autonomous Vehicle Systems, Team Tormenta, Indy Robot Racing, Terra Engineering, PVHA Road Warriors, CyberRider, AI Motorvators, Team Underdawg. )with most of the teams wiping out the first barrier, and/or re-arranging the hay bales at the tunnel entrance, colliding with the tunnel entrance and losing GPS after the tunnel. However, IT, from AI motorvaters had a full run on the shortened RDDF and TerraHawk made it thru most of the hard parts. Overbot ran very thoroughly and cautiously but froze on the downhill transition. ...if any of this information is incorrect please feel free to fix...I could be suffering the effects of sunstroke... ...anyhow, good luck all and I admire dedication of all of the teams on completing an AGV. ...see y'all in Primm, Espina

Re:More information and Video coverage here

[rayver]

oops.. didn't realize the NQEfinal paper and the grandchallenge links were already provided. Anyway, some more links (to articles):

http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/10/06/darpa2005_featur e_update/

"Blue Team" runs self-righting motorcycle at darpa Grand Challenge
http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/10/03/darpa2005_featur e_update/

DARPA Grand Challenge update #3: Interview with Team Cornell
http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/10/02/darpa_cornell_in terview/

DARPA Grand Challenge update #2: A chat with Team Mojavaton
http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/10/02/darpa_grand_chal lenge_update2/

DARPA Grand Challenge Update #1: Qualification Day 1 results
http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/10/02/darpa_grand_chal lenge_update1/

Gearing up for the DARPA Grand Challenge:
http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/10/01/darpa_grand_chal lenge_introduction/

well if the summary isn't going to explain it...

[fanblade]

If you're wondering what the DARPA Challenge is, you have to scroll to the bottom the their flash website:

"The DARPA Grand Challenge is an unprecedented government effort to accelerate research and development in autonomous ground vehicles to help save American lives on the battlefield. DARPA will award $2 million to the autonomous (robotic) ground vehicle that can successfully navigate a challenging desert course of approximately 150 miles the fastest (in less than 10 hours). The vehicles must find and follow a prescribed course route, avoid obstacles, and negotiate turns, all while travelling at militarily-relevant rates of speed. The ground vehicles are fully autonomous - not remote-controlled."

We can't even imagine the uses this will be put to

[John Jorsett]

The answer of course is that, once autonomous vehicles are possible and proven, the door is open to any use. The military will use them to deliver supplies, and so will relief organizations. Private companies will use them to transport materials for, for example, the building of remote pipelines or roads. Ranchers will use them to patrol the boundaries of their acreage. Security companies will employ autonomous vehicles to keep an eye on the perimeters of land they're guarding. Universities will use them to explore the arctic, antarctic, and other hostile environments. Radical nutjobs will use them to deliver deadly payloads instead of using human beings. And there will be a host of applications that we haven't even thought of yet.

Re:well if the summary isn't going to explain it..

[Spy der Mann]

Well, I think it's good to use robotic soldiers to spare soldiers' lives... but shouldn't the enemy have their own robotic soldiers, too?

Otherwise, it won't be a war. It will be a masacre.

progress on the cheap

[Douglas Simmons]

These DARPA competitions (and those of other organizations) have got to be one of the best ways to come up with new and useful technology. Instead of rowboat races, the bright and motivated students of top universities (as well as other entusiasts) compete against each other for a battle of imagination and ingenuity to win not useless trophies but the thrill of having created something of potential practical use. Also, these competitions help boost the reputations of the colleges and universities as these often get media coverage, and if you've noticed, they've got their school's name on their autonomous submarines. And of course, DARPA gets some cheap R&D.

Still too slow

[Krater76]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: it's very difficult to cover 150 miles in 10 hours, obviously, you need a minimum speed of 15 mph. Their 2.2-mile semifinal course had a best average time of 10:20. That's still just under 13 mph. If the average time was 8 minutes or less I'd be excited.

Don't get me wrong I'm very impressed with the results so far but it might just not be enough. Here's to hoping that they can make up some time elsewhere.

Re:Still too slow

[not5150]

Due to the speed limits imposed at the qualifications, the vehicles could not get much better times.

At the qualifications, there were mandatory speed limits imposed in most (if not all) the areas. In the RDDF file, there are the GPS coordinates and a speed limit number. For example, the straight away was 40mph while some of the obstacle strewn areas was 5 mph. The vehicles are capable of going faster and in fact a couple vehicles maxed out the 40 mph on the straight away.

DARPA officials at the media press conference on Wednesday said that if they stick to the race speed limits, then they will finish in about 6 1/2 to 7 hours. In the real race, there are hard speed limits and then there are suggested limits (which a team can break). The suggested speed limits are in low obstacle areas, but are suggeseted so that the chase vehicle doesn't lose sight of the robot. Remember that this race is being held in the desert, so the dust kicked up could obscure it from view.

Quirky fact, the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) mandates 25 mph or less in desert tortoise areas. You gotta love beauracracy.

Some of this is explained in my article on tgdaily.com

http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/10/06/darpa2005_featur e_update/

Re:Still too slow

[Krezel]

Speeds in the NQE event were limited by DARPA. They hand us a file containing waypoints, speeds, and track widths that we're limited to. Go too fast or wander outside the gates and they penalize you. The speeds at the NQE event are not representative of what you'll get to see once the robots are in the open desert.

Highlander's record time was only 7 seconds slower than the "course ideal" that you could expect to get if you went exactly the speed limit all the way around. In fact, we were scolded by DARPA for pushing the speed limit to get that time. They didn't think we could do it without speeding.

Re:Still too slow

[Mockingbird]

There were hard speed limits set on various sections of the qualifier course. The best performing vehicle, H1ghlander, executed the course within a few seconds of the best possible time given the constraints. Performance on the NQE course has about as much to do with race-success as grating cheese does with belly dancing.

At least three of the vehicles that qualified for the race have performed 170 mile runs at race-success pace on mixed road/off-road courses that should simulate race conditions very closely. Many of the vehicles have code in place that allows top speeds over forty miles per hour when long, straight, smooth sections of course are detected.

I know that the CMU teams pre-plan their runs in the two hour period between receipt of the course waypoint file and the beginning of the race. They will not load a plan designed to execute in more than ten hours and, given the quality of the competition this year, I betcha they'll be aiming at eight.

A hot issue this year that I haven't seen discussed on public forums is intent-to-pass. My understanding is that DARPA will force a vehicle into 'pause' mode if it is being overtaken by a faster competitor. I'm willing to bet there will be some post-race howling around that dynamic.

Re:Still too slow

[Creosote]

Quirky fact, the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) mandates 25 mph or less in desert tortoise areas. You gotta love beauracracy.

Right. Tortoises just don't make a satisfying enough splat when you hit them going under 50 mph.

(If I ran things, that max speed would be more like 5 mph. But then I'm a Joshua tree-hugger.)

In other news...

[toocoolforschool]

The Florida State entry did not complete the course. It was last seen heading towards Tijuana, Mexico, picking up hotties along the way.

Re:We can't even imagine the uses this will be put

[hoggoth]

> The answer of course is that, once autonomous vehicles are possible and proven, the door is open to any use.
> ... military ... deliver supplies ... building remote pipelines ... patrol acreage ... guarding perimeters ... explore hostile environments ... deliver deadly payloads ... And there will be a host of applications that we haven't even thought of yet

Yes, but how will this apply to porn?
Everyone knows porn drives all new technology.

Hmmm...

[thewrathoffluffy]

DARPA Grand Challenge Finalists Announced
EU, UN to Wrestle Internet Control From US
Google Declares War on Microsoft

...is it just me, or are /. headlines sounding more and more like a wrestling Pay-Per-View?

Re:well if the summary isn't going to explain it..

[Stonehand]

Considering that "humanitarians" frequently go on and on about how human life is paramount, that for a home owner to not take EVERY means to de-escalate a situation including running away from his own property, and that to defend yourself is to be judge, jury and executioner -- you'd think you WOULD love that.

Because, of course, it doesn't matter if they burn your house and steal your property; you're not supposed to value your property over their life. Gosh, they might even be mentally ill and therefore it's not really their fault. Oh well.

(And yes, that's the sort of argument one hears an awful lot... on Fark, anyway.)

On a less incendiary note, you should take note that it's not infrequently the slightly disadvantaged side that starts wars -- but that they do not necessarily fully realize their own difficulties. For example: In retrospect, a sane analysis should have indicated that the Confederacy, with much inferior manpower, industrial base, and naval forces and no real advantage in doctrine (officers in both sides having been trained through the same system) was essentially doomed barring a sudden shock that would make war politically unpalatable for the North. The "one of ours is worth ten of theirs because our boys learned to shoot when young" spiel and other myths, however, combined with bravado to apparently mislead them. Were they facing a force that they could not see any means to defeat, they probably wouldn't have started a war, and a rather great number of people wouldn't have died. You wouldn't have had the abuses of Reconstruction, and perhaps the South would have been less ready for the rise of the Klan.

It might also have been suggested that for Germany and Japan to have thought they could win against the rest of the world over the long haul was insane, based on population, area, resource distribution, and so forth. Japan, in particular, had vulnerable supply lines... It took an awful lot of inhumanity to prove them wrong.

But if Saddam -knew- that the US would have intervened after the Kuwait situation, and he -knew- that the US had not only the military means but the political will to defeat him utterly, would he have gone ahead anyway? Assuming that he was even slightly rational, he probably would have backed down instead of trying to enforce his territorial claims, and we wouldn't have ended up with years of sanctions hurting his general population while illicit oil revenue found its way into his palaces. Wars start when people think they can win, even when they're actually wrong.

Woohoo

[thebdj]

Go Buckeyes. Making the finalists. Glad to see the engineers at my alma mater doing well...