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9th Annual AUV Competition Results
Sean.D.Matthews writes "This weekend the 9th Annual Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Competition was held in San Diego. This year, teams were challenged to complete three tasks including finding a docking station, dropping markers in marked bins along a pipeline, and surfacing in a recovery zone marked by an acoustic pinger. Teams from MIT, Cornell, Duke and eighteen others competed for the grand prize. After an intense final round, the University of Florida's Team SubjuGator walked away with the victory for a second year in a row. Interestingly, the UF team ran Windows XP embedded on SubjuGator's on-board computer."
Steve Balmer will be giving his victory speech shortly.
Similes are like metaphors
"Interestingly, the UF team ran Windows XP embedded on SubjuGator's on-board computer.""
The BSOD's blend nicely with the water.
I have this sinking feeling...
Interestingly, the UF team ran Windows XP embedded on SubjuGator's on-board computer."
Could somebody please tell me why this is "interesting"?
I'm kind of surprised that the article summary didn't read, "Interestingly, the UF team assembled the SubjuGator using Phillips head screws."
Autonomous UNDERWEAR , whoa--- sounds like a big (or small) privacy issue.
that it never deep blue screened.
We're the only high school to compete in it. Last year we placed 5th but this year we did like no work during the school year and I wasnt here during most of the summer so I have no idea what happened. Our best ranking was 2nd. Apparently this year we're 15th. Look for Amador Valley High School on this page: http://www.auvsi.org/competitions/06standings.cfm
All your base are belong to Wii.
Well, to be fair, I'm sure that the OS has little to do with the controls once they're done writing their own code, and I'm sure the same could be done with just about any OS at the "helm".
Unlimited cooling source + buoyancy control = Hardware necessary to run XP
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
Release of Vista now delayed while Microsoft develops drivers for a snorkel.
dnuof eruc rof aixelsid
I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you MacPro/Leopard fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a MacPro (a quad core Xeon with 1GB RAM) for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy a 17 Meg file from one folder on the hard drive to another folder. 20 minutes. At home, on my 2.5GHz G5 running OS X 10.4, which by all standards should be a lot slower than this Mac, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.
In addition, during this file transfer, Safari will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even TextMate is straining to keep up as I type this.
I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on various Mactels, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen a Mac that has run faster than its PowerPC counterpart, despite the Macs' faster chip architecture. My Dual G4 with 128 megs of ram runs faster than this 3 ghz machine at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the Macintosh is a superior machine.
Mac addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use a Mac over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.
Join Tor today!
........cause that's my name, that name again is Plower Mist!!!!!
"just that way your mother likes it"
Is there a troll tag?
I spend most of my time in bed, darling.
"This weekend the 9th Annual Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) Competition was held in San Diego. This year, teams were challenged to complete three tasks including finding a gas station, dropping markers in marked bins along an Alaskan pipeline, and surfacing in a recovery zone marked by a left winger. Teams from MIT, Cornell, Duke and eighteen others competed for the grand prize. After an intense final round, the University of Florida's Team InjecTorGator walked away with the victory for a second year in a row. Interestingly, the UF team ran high octane on InjecTorGator's big-ass V8."
http://www.auvsi.org/competitions/06competitors.c
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20060807
http://mywebcache.com/2006/08/07/subjugator-holds
XP must not fear.
Uptime is the project-killer.
Uptime is the blue-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face XP PR.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has rebooted, I will turn on the inner bios to see its path.
Where the XP has crashed there will be nothing.
Only XP will remain.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Carlo Francis (Captain)
James Greco
Kevin Claycomb
Matthew Koenn
Sean Cohen
Sean Matthews
Michael Gregg
Jacob Collumns
Gene Shokes
Greg Cieslewski
Adam Barnett
Eric M. Schwartz (Advisor)
A. Antonio Arroyo (Advisor)
While we are good at developing machinery and electronics, programming AI into the system has always been the problem. The solution: Borrow an existing solution from nature. All you need is an insect, rat, or reptile to interface with the device and for them to obtain feedback with sensors it would closely be accustomed too. Just imagine for a moment using a pigeon mounted inside a scramjet with the only purpose to get an item from point A to B in a battle field autonomously. How about using rodents to operate a robotic vehicle provide surveillance or rescue missions. The list goes on.
Join Tor today!
i hope it's not just me, but the idiotic and STUPID ms bashing is just getting on my last nerve, i use both windows and linux for what i NEED, you asshat moderators should REALLY get a fscking grip and knock it the fsck off. OBVIOUSLY those guys at UF knew what they needed, used what they needed, and WON, but no, your useless crackmonkey of a trolling ASS cant seem to NOT lower yourself to slime level anytime the opportunity presents itself to bash something YOU cant code.
way to go guys at UF for doing something really cool and WINNING
i find it interesting that only one intelligent comment has been made on this whole thread so far. the post about any OS being able to run the units. i know i'll be modded down as a troll, but there's no reason to be afraid of a windows bot winning 2 years in a row. yes, linux r0xx0rz and is uber, so take solace in that. the bot didnt blue screen, it didnt crash. it won. let's have some proper commentary maybe oh, i don't know, on the the technology, like this place is supposed to be discuss, rather than windows bashing every topic that mentions it in a positive way and turning slashdot more and more into a linux fanboy club. mod me down now.
(Futurama) Fry: "My folks were always on me to groom myself and wear underpants. What am I, the pope?"
Aren't you content with spamming by email? Go home and die.
You mean you don't want Linux nerds making autonomous vehicles? I don't see the problem.
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http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/3118/ms1by.jpg
http://img270.imageshack.us/img270/7789/linuxnylu
Oh... well, then there is always the Mac people.
http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/7792/img08079i
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http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/5096/img07309m
Err, okay, nevermind. Better stick with Windows.
=)
Join Tor today!
...so that's the only safe place to run Windows XP these days, what with all the viral code running about?
The SPSU team ran a Linux OS last year but traded off for a fully embedded system and compiled code was directly written to the hardware using a custom USB interface. In terms of this competition you really don't need an OS at all. In their/our view it was mostly a very expensive and bulky crutch.
Of course we came in 10th so....
What I found interesting was the custom carbon fiber body, MIL-STD underwater wiring and connectors and logos on the side like Lockheed Martin and Microsoft. With sponsors and resources like that I wonder where the challenge is? IMHO there should be two different series - an open series like the existing one and one for software only where all teams would use the same platform. And perhaps there should be some limits set on the open series on resources like you would in a Soapbox Derby. That way kids would have to learn use their wits rather than throw money at problems. I guess this explains those military R&D budjets...
www.tribalnetworks.org - helping tribal people around the world to own their own means of high-tech communications
What are you sinking about?
Video for Online Dating Profiles
Those fashion-slaves! They wanted to use an opertaing system who's default screen would coordinate with the hues of the test setting!
Duke doesn't deserve to be 2nd place. Their solution for the final part of the course wasn't autonomous; they guesstimated the location of the retrieval zone and used some doppler gizmo to tell how far the sub went, instead of searching for the acoustic pinger. That's pretty half-assed if you ask me. ETS deserved the 2nd place, again.
This year again you tried to make a troll about Subjugator running windows... Could you look at all the effort that it take to build an AUV and giving more information on the event instead ? Well, I'm in SONIA the AUV team of the École de technologie supérieur. We finish on the podium with Duke and UF. It would have been nice if you would have mentioned it... instead of talking about MIT that finish fifth this year. One year of effort deserved some visibility. Anyway, nice work to all the teams that were there at this year competitions. To UF and Duke :) I'm pretty sure it was close ;)
Good luck for the new development year that is beginning.
Lams
Using XP to run these kinds of systems is noteworthy because it's highly unusual. Almost all robots run Linux or special embedded systems, and for good reason: XP is not a good platform for building robots on. No, that's not because of stability issues, it's because there is almost no robot building community around it, because it's not intended for these kinds of applications, and because it's hard to get even partial source code for it.
Microsoft has seen the writing on the wall, which is why they are trying to catch up in the robotics area, but it's doubtful they ever will be more than a fringe player.
I'm sure the same could be done with just about any OS at the "helm".
Purely technologically, you are probably right. In the real world, you are wrong. That has nothing to do with technological differences, it has to do with community, source code, non-disclosure agreements, and tools, and those are quite limited for Windows XP compared to Linux. Using Windows XP to run an autonomous vehicle is quite unusual because a lot of non-technological constraints make it a hard thing to do.
People notice that Windows XP is being used for this, Microsoft gets free publicity, and people like you still keep whining.
The real question is: why did the UFL team bother using Windows XP in the first place? It costs a lot of money, you can't get source code for it, there is much less robotics work being done in it than in Linux, and there are fewer tools for robotics available for it.
So, can you answer the question: why were they using XP, when the obvious choice would have been Linux in this application? Did they get a grant?
I would have liked more real information about the event, and about the high-placed teams. Out of 18 entrants, I'm sure the top 5, at least, have done very good and very interesting work. But Slashdot these days seems to be less for techies and more for the kind of people who watch network news. Who finished first is all the masses care about. How they did it, and how other high-placed teams did it, is all I'm interested in.
As for the nonsense about which OS the winning team picked: if the top 5 teams had all picked Windows, that might be interesting. Or 9 out of the 10 top teams. Did they? The Slashdot editors neither know nor care. It's time moderators got the capability to moderate articles as "-1, Troll", not just replies.
Surely any marine vessel should be running Portholes XP.
Slashdot has grown to a fairly large community and no longer can be described by mentioning a handful for stereotypes. There is a group of people that do however fit into a stereotype that I often see here trolling. They are people that spend a considerable amount of time reading the articles and commenting on stupid points that are entirely irrelevant to the topic. Sadly, most of them actual have careers in computers typically as bench techs or some other entry level position. I've known a lot of these people in my life and sadly my wife works with a bunch of them, being a help desk technician herself.
I'd like to point out what makes this entirely irrelevant so that whoever was offended by the previous comment will hopefully have a better understanding as to why it is nonsense.
1) Windows and Linux typically die for the same reasons in modern times, from a stability perspective, Windows and Linux are in fact comparible. Sadly, a shitty driver will still take down either system, but it's a disadvantage of running drivers in protected mode (ring 0).
2) Machine control through either system is equal. Writing drivers for either system is approximately of the same level of complexity. The only real difference would be in the circumstance where a USB driver would need to be written since Linux user mode USB, although somewhat contradictory to the rest of the Linux driver model is quite simple and although not elegant, is powerful. Besides, it should be clearly noted that for systems like this, typically good old fashioned RS-232/422 or the more bus oriented CAN communications methods are likely to be used. In this case there's no benefit of one system over the other since for the most part, DOS would be good enough.
3) Performance isn't an issue, I run many systems on both Linux and Windows XP Embedded and for nearly every reason imaginable, I have no preference between the systems. I do prefer Windows XP Embedded to act as a file server because of the amazing product called MacServerIP from Cyan which seems to be the only maintained implementation of AppleTalk that isn't part of Mac OS itself. But in reality, this is a non-issue in this circumstance. Performance of Linux and Windows XP Embedded is almost identical for most every circumstance. The major performance issues that people see on Windows are more often all the services and the windowing system that's enabled on XP by default. XP embedded doesn't have this issue.
Here's where it could be relevant. I'll point something out from personal experience having developed retail software for the past 10 years and machine control for a few years before that. Having written code for Linux, Windows, Mac, Symbian, QNX, etc... Windows takes less time to develop for. It's true. Because of the development tools on Windows, specifically the Microsoft suite, the team that used Windows XP Embedded had a real edge since engineering code on Windows and the Windows embedded systems is a charm. They were most likely able to spend less than a quarter of the time the other teams used configuring the system and tracking down API documentation. They probably had their imaging systems up and running in minutes and using well documented interfaces were able to integrate it into their software almost immediately.
The other thing I'd like to point out that makes Windows XP embedded a clear choice when time is an issue is that remote debugging on Linux is useless for debugging threads. GDB has always had this issue and might always have it. To debug Linux applications remotely, you need to be able to install all debugging symbols and a full copy of GDB on the target machine and either SSH or telnet in. Visual Studio on the other hand is actually a charm regarding remote debugging. You don't even need to configure it, you just choose the target, compile and run, it does the rest.
To make a small confession, I've purchased a licensed copy of Qt 4 for Windows out of my own pocket cash since I find that developing Unix applications is most easily accom
SAUC-E, the european version of this contest ended yesterday. And the winner is team VICORB, from Spain.
--deckert
It does not necessarily take much to be a realtime operating system. The only requirement is that the responsetime to an external event has to be reasonable. I am sure that 1/10 of a second is just fine for an underwater vehicle. Windows XP even on a slow processor will finish housekeeping and service an interrupt in a few thousand clock cycles or a few microseconds. (A softmodem is a fine example)
In other words, hard realtime requirements like predictable responstime becomes irrelevant when you have a 2GHz processor. At least for allmost all real world tasks.
Secondly,
Embedded only means "No modal messageboxes" should stop excecution. (like "No kbd detected, press F1 to continue")
This is well known except in the marketing departments of real time, embedded OS makers.
"Fix it"
jezus christ you guys are lame
I dont get why CmdrTaco doesn't delete this login
Hangs head in shame.
Contest Report, 2006 SubjuGator Team Members, full fledged Windows XP Professional on a Pentium M.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
lol what
...how about just throwing SUVs into deep bodies of water? And letting "soccer mums" walk their kids to school...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Does anyone else question the intentions of the sponsors of this event? The competition is sponsored by the SpaWar Systems Center (where the competition was held), the US Navy, and other military industrial greats such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing.
Given the substantial non-military uses of autonomous robotics do we really need the military funding? I for one do not welcome our autonomous-deathsub-controlling overlords. In fact, I hit on this point in a blog yesterday.
"Interestingly, the UF team ran Windows XP embedded on SubjuGator's on-board computer."
Who the hell would want Gator infected with Windows XP?
No, I didn't RTFA.
playmoney.me - The free alternative to paper board game play money
I can't wait until these robot competitions move from "dancing poodle" shows that are interesting just because robots can do anything at all, to robotwar competitions which choose the winner from those that survive combat among the competitors. That's when we'll see the SW attacks on the embedded OS and apps.
If I were entering my robot in that kind of competition, I'd want to see the entire OS and app, even if I got it from someone else, to strip out extras and close holes. We'll see just how popular Windows becomes in that darwinian environment.
--
make install -not war
Hello All
I am the captain of the SubjuGator team. We used XP mainly because no one on the team knew how to use Linux well. We tried XP Pro last year and were sucessful and continued to use XP Embedded this year. We never had problem with the Windows OS...the only problems we had were power supply related which were solved months before the 06 competition.
There was very stiff competiton this year and ETS was our closest rival. It seemed that they put in as much hard work as we did and came with a very competitive submarine. We battled it out and UF came out on top but we could have easly been second if the ETS ball dropper had deployed their markers over the bins they found.
I look forward to competing with teams as prepared as ETS next year...it makes the competiton much more exciting.
Carlo
Next years contest will get a lot more media coverage. It takes a while for the press to understand the salient features of a GPS guided AUV. Let's start by viewing it as a poor man's warhead delivery system. It's undetectable and has enough accuracy to pinpoint any port city in the world.
Of course, it is a little slower than an ICBM, but you shouldn't rush things like world dominance. Homeland Security should be able to get another couple of hundred million out of this little cash cow.
muh dick
I keep seeing this and have to ask.... why does having the source to the Linux kernel matter for robotics? It seems that many people post saying this is a big deal. Unless there are kernel modifications required to support something, the closest to dorking around in the kernel that any of the groups would have to do is write a device driver.
First of all, it's not just the groups themselves that do the kernel hacking; the fact that it's open source means that vendors not only can modify the kernel for their hardware, but also is not disincentivized by restrictive licenses from doing so. With Linux, a vendor can be assured that the software, updates, and their modifications will be available to them in perpetuity and will be supported by a large community, for free; with Windows, they can't even be assured that the next version can even be made to run on their hardware.
What kind of modifications? Device drivers are a big deal, and they are much easier in an open source OS because most drivers can be created by picking one of the thousands of existing drivers and modifying it slightly. Also, you can strip down the OS and remove unneeded features; Linux kernels can be tiny. And a lot of porting to new hardware involves deeper modifications than merely creating new device drivers; it requires changes to how devices are found, configured, enumerated, etc. In addition, both the Linux kernel and the Linux user environment can comfortably run in a few megabytes of memory--the development and windowing tools people have been using for the last couple of decades will work just fine; in contrast, embedded Windows is quite stripped down and has a lot of differences to regular Windows.
But basically, you are asking the wrong question. The real question should not be: "why not use Windows", the real question should be: "what significant features does embedded Windows have that justify the cost and hassle of licensing it"? So far, I have not seen a good answer to that. Visual Studio used to be an answer (and pretty much the only one), but even for that, there are excellent open source alternatives now.