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DARPA Grand Challenge 3
Meostro writes "DARPA announced the 3rd "Grand Challenge" today, The DARPA Urban Challenge. "To
succeed, vehicles must autonomously obey traffic laws while merging into moving traffic,
navigating traffic circles, negotiating busy intersections and avoiding obstacles." This year's new twist is two tracks for entry: the first is the same as the previous two challenges (develop on your own without Gov't. funding), but the second involves "submitting a detailed proposal for up to $1 million of technology development funds." Here is the PDF press release ."
Yes, they do research in defense but shouldn't there be a little more than a tiny graphic or blurb about what work they're doing? Couldn't they at least take the time to write an abstract or 1-2 page paper with unclassified information on each project?
Instead, I find the following links in the 'Archives':
- Quantum Computing
- Infrared Focal Plane Array/Uncooled Integrated Sensors
- Advanced Lithography
- Most of the Other Links
My alma mater has produced better papers than this in these fields. I know that a lot of this stuff isn't classified and they list their programs on their sites, why can't they do a better job in showing the American public what they've done with our money?The Grand Challenge Forums are flooded with only vendors. Where are the designs and reports by the teams from older Grand Challenges? Why isn't this structured more like RoboCup where the learning algorithms are released every year so that future contestants can build on this?
The fact that this contest isn't run in a more open way makes it seems like less of a "contest" and more of a "do our research for us!" kind of thing.
My work here is dung.
...how this can be "safe" (as far as it can be anyway) with cars which are automated going on roads for which the system works (I'm assuming most are based on the idea of staying within the white lines) I worry about this quote...
We believe the robotics community is ready to tackle vehicle operation inside city limits. - Dr. Tony Tether, DARPA Director
You can build the safest car in the world but there is always a need to be able to take a very quick decision to avoid some other idiot who might be breaking the rules of the road and not be in an automated car... still, if we all had them...
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
Second, because it's a challenge! Last year's competition was not easy- look at the one two years ago, where most of the contestants barely made it out of the starting gate. (Or didn't) When proposed, it was an absurd reach- no robot had come anywhere close to the Grand Challenge specs; they were all busy managing 5-10 mph on easy courses. Nobody would have been interested if the challenge had been 10mph for 10 miles. Would they get the same number of entrants this year if the challenge was basically the same as before?
I agree, this is a serious reach. But honestly, it's not impossible. You have a *lot* more to navigate by in the city- all sorts of yellow and white paint lines on the road, existing high-detail maps and standardized road signs. Most of the drive will be free of serious obstacles, although I assume DARPA will throw in a some shell holes and road blocks to make it interesting. The radars to track other cars already exist- you can buy a car today with sophisticated cruise control that maintains correct distances. My guess is that robots will be better in city driving than humans very soon- 360 degree radar, much faster reaction times, no Starbucks latte and cell phone...
I suspect the next Grand Challenge will be something like "Start at Depot A, navigate across 300 miles of varying terrain, drop off at city center B". Speaking as that ex-platoon guy, most of the drivers in my unit couldn't *read*, much less read a map. They had to be led the entire way by someone who could. (Or at least, pretended he could- this was in the days before GPS.) Bring on the robots.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
but what do the two challenges have to do with each other from a technical standpoint?
When you boil it down, they're the exact same thing -- this is just a couple orders of magnitude more difficult. The previous challenge didn't have them dealing with any dynamic variables -- no passing vehicles, no being passed by vehicles, no boulders rolling off a mountain, etc.
And if you're going to solve those problems, why not do it for real? A boulder falling off the side of the road is reasonably uncommon. A car cutting you off is not (n.b. -- the challenge doesn't actually talk about this as an issue, and it may not be; we'll know more after May 20).
It's still all about road detection, object detection, and avoidance. And you're asking what they have to do with each other technically?
Are they going to give the robots the GPS location of all the stop signs and traffic circles?
Again, we won't know until after the Participant Conference on May 20, but I'd actually suspect they will, along with info on what speed limits apply in different areas (as they did last time). This is not unreasonable -- GPS mapping a city is pretty trivial when it comes down to it, and I doubt that the challenge is geared toward being fully dynamic -- e.g. you'll still follow a predetermined route, there won't be sudden changes in traffic rules (no road crews), and so forth.
That said, even if you have full GPS info on stop signs and so forth the most that's useful for is that you need to be watching out for a sign coming up soon. GPS isn't accurate enough (at least on a moving vehicle) to rely on it for road signs -- coming to a complete stop 3m beyond the stop sign doesn't work so well. So they'll still have to visually recognize a lot of traffic signage.
In some ways this will be easier than the previous challenge -- this is all low speed, so the issue of not being able to process the incoming data in real time will be reduced. On the flip side, you'll have to process a lot more data this time -- as you said, you must be able to recognize the difference between a boulder and a bush for this challenge.
I'll be impressed with no crashing into each other, before they worry about compliance with all traffic laws.
I'll be absolutely stunned if anyone succeeds this year, and moderately surprised if anyone succeeds at the one after.
But once this is complete, on to the next challenge -- mixed mode driving (urban, suburban, highway, maybe offroad). Then you can't tailor your algorithm toward a specific goal.