Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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."

8 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. 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.

      --
      No comment.
  2. 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?
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.