DARPA Grand Challenge Updates

Red Team writes "Today is the day. The official race route for the DARPA Grand Challenge was released to the first five teams at 4:00AM PST this morning. Our race planners are pouring over the race route getting ready for the launch. H1ghlander will start first at sunrise, around 6:15AM PST, followed by Stanford and then Sandstorm. For real-time updates on the race, you can track the Red Team race-day blog or catch the webcast on the official Grand Challenge page." Update: 10/08 20:57 GMT by Z : USSJoin writes "Stanford Racing, home of Stanley, has just finished the 131.2 mile DARPA Grand Challenge course. Considering that the CalTech Vehicle (Alice) jumped off the track toward onlookers only 8.3 miles in, this demolition derby-meets-AI demo has certainly been exciting."

Comments

Re:Popular Science has most recent updates

[Capt'n Hector]

Is this because they've been perfecting technology (no doubt they have) or because DARPA has chosen an easier route?

We need a Google Maps Hacker

[Maddog Batty]

Can someone combine Google Maps with the XML here: http://www.grandchallenge.org/data/location.xml

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Sensors sensors sensors

[Maddog Batty]

They are a lot more clever than you think they are. The qualification event was all about avoiding obstacles that were in the way and had sections with no GPS coverage.

A couple of teams are using stereo cameras to find there way around but the vast majority are using SICK scanning laser range finders. They show you where things are over short distances which enables you to avoid obstacles at low speeds. Red Team are also using radar to be able to detect obstacles at greater distances to enable higher speeds. Unfortunately, it doesn't pick up everything. However data fusing everything together (GPS, INS, Radar, Lidar + others) allows you to move at modist speeds using current tech. Luck is always useful but technology is what is being used today.

TGDaily.com also has a blog up

[not5150]

http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/10/08/darpagrandchalle nge2005/
With pictures :)

Most interesting one so far is when Caltech's Alice charged through a k-rail, knocking it over and then started up a berm towards reporters. It was E-Stopped just a few feet away from hitting the media.

Luck has nothing to do with it !

[timeToy]

Welcome to the future ! The time now is 11h45am PST, I can predict that several cars are going to finish the course this year, one might have been luck, 3 or 4 for is not. Sensors, but more than that, the actual programs that run the car is the key here. Heck even my own personal Lego Mindstrom creations can navigate their way inside my home ! mmm I may enlist a Lego based car bot next challenge !

any of the contestants here?

[Edmund Blackadder]

During last years challenge all contestants were complaining that the thing was rigged in order to get the red team to win. I.e. there were last minute rule changes for which the red team was prepared for, but nobody else was, and some contestants said they had an operational system ready yet they were not allowed to compete.

I am not at all surprised of this, since the red team is sponsored by the major military contractors and we all know how they basicaly control military procurement.

But I was wondering if similar shenanigans were happening this time around. Any of the competitors care to comment?

Re:any of the contestants here?

[mroch]

Maybe it has nothing to do with favoring Red Team, and more to do with the fact that CMU has one of the top robotics and AI university programs in the world, teamed with defense contractors that should be expecting something like that, so they just happened to be more prepared...

Re:any of the contestants here?

[Animats]

As a team leader of one of the teams eliminated at the NQE, I didn't see any visible favoritism by the DARPA staff. The teams that went to Primm are the teams that should have gone.

Funding is more of an issue. Teams were supposed to have no Government funding whatsoever, either direct or indirect. Yet MITRE had a team, and they're a quasi-governmental agency. CMU has received DARPA robotics contracts for years, as has Stanford. Red Whittaker of the CMU team is still the principal investigator on a NASA grant (#NAG5-12890) until February 2006. Stanford used software developed under DoD contract, although anyone can download it and they asked DARPA for permission. It's more of a revolving-door issue than direct diversion of Government funds.

But the real incentive for the big university teams was fear. If Joe's Auto Parts fielded a better robot than some university getting $20 million a year in robotics funding from DARPA, DARPA might well pull the plug on the school. CMU faced that prospect; originally, they weren't going to enter the Grand Challenge at all. The whole Grand Challenge was created because of unhappiness at DARPA with the rate of progress in mobile robotics. DARPA has been pouring robotics money into CMU and Stanford for thirty years, without getting much back. The head of DARPA, Dr. Tony Tether, decided that it was time to do something about that. It worked.

Google Earth

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the starting point in Primm,NV

  3537'8.83"N
11522'39.26"W

There's a small poor resolution band going across one section. The rest isn't bad though

Soldiers: Yay!; Truckers: Boo!

[Saeger]

Last year the best car made it only 7 miles. This year all cars but one have made it at least 22 miles (so far), with three frontrunners past the 100mile mark (so far) and expected to finish.

Now that's some amazing progress.

This is great news for the soldiers soon to be removed the line of fire; "ominous" news for the millions of truckers and taxi drivers (in the US alone) who'll be quickly replaced over the next decade.