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DARPA Challenge Prize Money Restored

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the yay-now-the-robots-can-buy-clothes dept.

antispam_ben wrote to mention that, some three months later, DARPA has been able to find the money to offer cash prizes once again. The DARPA Urban Challenge will go forward next November with more than $3 Million on the line. From the article: "The race will see as many as 90 teams 'drive' an unmanned robotic road vehicle through city traffic, competing to finish a 60-mile course within six hours. Set for November 3 of next year, the challenge will call on robots to safely obey traffic laws, negotiate busy intersections, merge into moving traffic, avoid obstacles and navigate traffic circles. DARPA has yet to disclose the race location, but has said it will be in the western United States. The government research group didn't unveil the 2005 Grand Challenge location in the Mojave Desert until weeks before that race, in order to avoid giving any team an advantage."

27 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. No need for DARPA by Kagura · · Score: 2, Funny

    Just hit the cruise control, and go to sleep! It's a less expensive, and a whole lot more fun!

    1. Re:No need for DARPA by megaditto · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I know you are just kidding, but if you think about it, robotic driving is not rocket science, exactly.

      If you think about it, all the robotic drivers in computer games such as Grand Theft Auto are pretty damn good, and can follow rules and stick to routes much better than their human opponents. So, driving/navigation algorythms have been developed a decade ago, all they need is a good way to recognize their surroundings.

      With this in mind, this whole driving challenge is a problem no different from OCR or voice recognition.

      --
      Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
    2. Re:No need for DARPA by tulsaoc3guy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      When I was 18 and knew everything, I used to think everything was easy also.

    3. Re:No need for DARPA by ZeroExistenZ · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Coïncidently I've seen a documentary about the second challenge.

      In the first challenge the teams, composed fo bright fellows, all failed exactly because it isn't so straightforward.
      The difficulty would exactly be adaptive decisionmaking of the robots; would DARPA (a military instance wanting automated vehicles) put in 2mio USD if it were as easy?

      --
      I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
    4. Re:No need for DARPA by dslauson · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Video game driving algorithms rely on a discretized version of the world, meaning there is a finite set of possibilities for everything. There are far more possibilities in the real world, and a real-time system like this must take them all into account.

      You have a point that this does boil down to the problem of reducing a car's surroundings into meaningful data, much like in OCR or voice recognition, but there is VASTLY more data in the real world than there is in a single image or audio file.

      Humans have the benefit of a built-in filter so that we can pay attention to things deemed important, and ignore those that are not. If we had to take the time to process every piece of data that came in through our five senses, we would never be able to keep up, let alone focus on completing any meaningful work.

      The mars rovers have the luxury of having nothing but time. They can take a set of pictures of their surroundings, and sit and think and crunch on them for a while before deciding on the best course of action. In a race situation, especially one with moving obstacles, that's just not an option.

      AI often has the appearance of seeming easy, because so many of the calculations involved are not even conscious thoughts in human processing. This is a much more difficult problem that it seems on the surface, though.

  2. Spooky by Baricom · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wonder who's going to be driving the other cars? In the previous races, the robots were traveling through a closed course with no traffic.

    1. Re:Spooky by DrunkenTerror · · Score: 4, Funny

      They should get robots to drive the other cars too.

    2. Re:Spooky by Phleg · · Score: 4, Informative

      To prefix my comment, let me just say that I am currently on the Georgia Tech team, Sting Racing. According to the rules, we will be on the course simultaneously with the other cars. The other other vehicles allowed on the course will be professional drivers. AFAIK, this is not being done in an actual city, but a small-ish mockup is being constructed for the purposes of the event. I could be wrong, though.

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      No comment.
    3. Re:Spooky by Phleg · · Score: 2, Informative

      Botched the URL. It's http://www.sting-racing.org/.

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      No comment.
    4. Re:Spooky by Dean+Hougen · · Score: 2, Funny
      The other other vehicles allowed on the course will be [driven by] professional drivers.

      Sure, in the actual competition. But in the individual team practice sessions at their home institutions? Grad students. Don't deny it.

      Dean

  3. How much does the insurance cost for this? by tinrobot · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I sure hope it's a closed course, because I'd hate to be t-boned by an errant robotic Touraeg.

  4. Yeah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    DARPA San Andreas baby!

    Actually, what I meant to say is that I'll be playing San Andreas in the automated vehicle while it safely navigates traffic--something I can no longer do after playing the GTA series. It is just too tempting to run down pedestrians and try to steal nicer and faster cars!

  5. A city in the Western US... by ductonius · · Score: 4, Funny
    ... road vehicle through city traffic, ... it will be in the western United States

    Will additional points be awarded if they successfully navigate the LA aqueducts, find Sarah Conner?
  6. Traffic circles?! by Qzukk · · Score: 4, Funny

    navigate traffic circles.

    No American is going to win this one...

    --
    If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
    1. Re:Traffic circles?! by Charcharodon · · Score: 2, Informative
      Yeah but the British team is going to go around to the left and end up getting in a head on with a HUMVEE

      For those of you unintiated to the wonders of British driving, anyone that tells you to get a right hand drive car to "help" you get into things more quickly should be punched in the throat. Drving on the left hand side of the road, in a right hand, manual car, traffic circles, and all the signs being unfarmiliar makes you feel like you are dislexic and sixteen again.

      The first week of driving in the UK was more than a little stress full. The 20 minute drive home would leave me completely worn out. The first time I came to a double traffic circle with 3 branch intersections attached to them (Imagine eight streets coming together in one spot.) my brain just about melted.

      I'll admit I love traffic circles now because they mean two things, no stop lights and no stop signs and you only have to worry about traffic coming from your right. Also if your co-pilot sucks you just do a few donuts around it till you get back to the turn off you want. Down side is they clog up real easy when traffic picks up.

      I give props to the British for being top notch drivers, well trained, polite, don't camp out in the fast lane going slow, and decisive. Of course that's because the road system will eat you alive if you are poor driver. Only the strong will survive!

  7. Yay congress. by Yath · · Score: 2, Interesting
    From the article:

    But after much complaint from contestants, Kenneth Krieg, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, approved the prize money.

    No doubt the driving force behind this decision came from the folks at DARPA. First congress tells them to develop autonomous vehicles, then it proceeds to trip up their efforts with the "John Warner National Defense Authorization Act".

    What I'd really like to know is why they're pushing this technology so hard and fast. Does it make sense to go straight to an urban environment when only four constestants even managed to finish the last challenge?

    --
    I always mod up spelling trolls.
    1. Re:Yay congress. by ductonius · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Does it make sense to go straight to an urban environment when only four constestants even managed to finish the last challenge?

      They didn't need everyone from the last challenge to have finished it. They only need one.

      The fact that they got four finishers last time means the cross-country technology works. Now that removing the remaining bugs and improving cross-country technology is just a matter of time and money they can move onto the next step: urban driving.
  8. Call me a cynic if you like... by skelly33 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    but, while as a software engineer and electromechanical hobbyist I fully appreciate all the challenges involved with these robotic drivers, I'm just not impressed by systems that have courses plotted into them and use GPS and high resolution maps and intimate fore-knowledge of the landscape, etc. As a driver, -I- don't need that fore-knowledge to get from Sacramento to Manhattan - thousands of miles successfully navigated without any more fore-knowledge than that I have to travel generally North East through many states.

    I will be impressed when driving automation systems can start with a general idea of where their source and destination locations are and can read the signs to figure out how to get there. They must use perceptive powers to avoid colliding with other drivers or running down pedestrians and following the rules of the road instead of range finders and lasers and GPS-based speed limit adherance and other such nonsense.

    Until the system can be boiled down to a pair of eyes and a pwerful set of smarts driving , in my view, it's just an elaborate obstacle course being followed by the likes of this robot. I understand "baby steps", but "they" tend to avoid tackling these big challenges and instead continue to focus on these contraptions that just, plain aren't smart enough.

    IMHO, of course.

    1. Re:Call me a cynic if you like... by Phleg · · Score: 4, Informative

      I've posted elsewhere in this story, but again to prefix my comments, I'm a member of the Georgia Tech team, Sting Racing.

      The course plotting part of the challenge is actually probably the easiest part. It's roughly analogous to you reading a map beforehand -- we're given a file detailing all the aspects of the course (course segments, how many lanes are in the segments, etc., and zones where free driving is allowed) plus a mission file giving the different waypoints we have to reach. This is, relatively speaking, easy.

      The difficult part is determining where the edges of the road and its lanes are (GPS is terrible at this; most of the time it's accurate to 10 or so feet unless you're using extraordinarily expensive differential units) which is mostly done using visual scanning. Of course, we also have to detect other vehicles or obstacles in the path (using LIDAR and vision) and also determine the correct "pose" of the vehicle. Then we have to take that information and use it to modify the path we've already decided to take. These problems as it turns out are far, far harder than just plotting courses.

      --
      No comment.
    2. Re:Call me a cynic if you like... by Phleg · · Score: 2, Informative

      And of course, a lot of the purpose of this challenge is exactly what you stated in your post: we have to detect and avoid other cars, use safe and proper driving etiquette for passing others, follow the rules of the road (i.e., four-way stops, etc.), and dynamically adapt our course to the conditions. Chiefly, this last requirement means noticing obstacles (construction, accidents, etc.) and rerouting, but this could also incorporate predicting traffic jams. For instance, if a heavily-traveled section of the map has several intersections/stops, we might be able to predict this or at least notice it when we get close and take another path.

      We don't have to deal with pedestrians at this point, but give it another generation or two. Right now it would probably be pretty hard to find any volunteers to do it. :)

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      No comment.
    3. Re:Call me a cynic if you like... by StikyPad · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I have to travel generally North East through many states.

      Hopefully less of the former and more of the latter, unless you're trying to travel through Canada to get there. NYC is only 2 degrees (~149mi) north of Sacramento. For comparison purposes, LA is 4 degrees (~312mi) south of Sac.

      So what you (and just about everyone else, myself included) REALLY need is a map and/or some signs, rather than some supposed "inherent sense of direction" that you seem to believe we possess. What you believe you know (travel northeast) contradicts what you actually know (follow I80 until it turns into I90). And while you could probably get there following road signs, you'd be wise to consult an atlas along the way, and there's no reason a robot should be handicapped when that information is available to every other driver as well. Sure, it should have general rules to guide itself when information is lacking, but that's not always feasible, as evidenced by Mr. Kim this past week.

      They must use perceptive powers to avoid colliding with other drivers or running down pedestrians and following the rules of the road instead of range finders and lasers and GPS-based speed limit adherance and other such nonsense.

      Baby steps. You don't learn to drive on the freeway, and neither should "autonomous" vehicles. By the way, it's not the vehicles which are learning here -- it's their designers. We don't really want vehicles to run over people in order to learn that it's wrong. Radar (which is an acronym of Range and Finder, by the way) is an effective "perceptive power" for machines. It's fast and accurate, and Lexus uses it for distance sensing cruise control in many of their models.

      Also there's no hyphen between fore and knowledge. It's just one word.

      --
      https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
  9. Robust policy needed by Baldrson · · Score: 2, Funny
    DARPA presumably lost its granting authority with the passage of a congressional act--the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007--which gave money-granting power to another government agency, Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. So at the time, instead of awarding $2 million for first prize, $500,000 for second and $250,000 for third, DARPA said it would simply give out trophies to the three finalists.

    But after much complaint from contestants, Kenneth Krieg, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, approved the prize money.

    Policy that is so prone to failure is about as ridiculous as a system that cuts off funding to an entire branch of the military if someone tweaks some minor policy somewhere.

    These prize awards aren't just some minor toy program -- they are the future of technology development which means defense preparedness. Maybe there are some radical Muslim cleric moles posing as policy makers. Oh well... Islam isn't as bad as some theocracies.

    --
    Seastead this.
    1. Re:Robust policy needed by ErikZ · · Score: 2, Funny

      Racism?

      Well then, we should be easily able to cure Muslims by finding the gene that makes them turn to Islam. A little genetic engineering and *bam*! No more Muslim gene.

      Please look up the word "Racism" before you embarrass yourself any further.

      --
      Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
  10. Re:Stupid misconception by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Who got this stupid notion that the United States doesn't have traffic circles?

    Nobody said they didn't. But have you ever sat around watching Americans try to figure one out? (Actually new england apparently has enough that new england natives can figure it out as long as there aren't any foreigners screwing things up)

  11. Big difference by IorDMUX · · Score: 2, Informative

    The race will see as many as 90 teams 'drive' an unmanned robotic road vehicle

    I know... I know... they did put 'drive' in semi-quotes, but it's still misleading to a reader who is unfamiliar with the Challenge.

    I've said it before and I'll say it again: The robots will be driving themselves.

    This type of design is worlds different from a system to be 'driven' using a joystick or by some guy monitoring the robot's progress. Amazing leaps and bounds in artificial intelligence, software image recognition, spatial on-the-go mapping, etc. are coming out of DARPA Urban Challenge that would never be necessary if there was a human hand--even remotely--behind the controls.

    --
    >> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down.
  12. Re:City traffic... by Phleg · · Score: 2, Informative

    The maximum speed any car will be allowed to do on the course is 35mph (might be 30mph, it's been awhile since I looked). There will be blocked streets so cars will have to replan their route, and we can probably assume DARPA is going to throw a traffic jam at us.

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    No comment.
  13. Stay away from this one! by lemaymd · · Score: 2, Funny

    If I were a contestant, I would make sure my vehicle stays out of the way of Oshkosh Truck's entry! http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/Teams/Track_A_ Teams/TeamOshkoshTruck.asp