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$2 Million on the Table for DARPA Urban Challenge
coondoggie writes "The contestants: Thirty-five driverless vehicles. The goal: to navigate an intricate faux-urban environment quickly. The prize: $2 million for the fastest qualifying vehicle. 'The National Qualification Event will take place this weekend ... DARPA says its third-annual Urban Challenge program has the lofty goal of developing technology that will keep soldiers off the battlefield and out of harm's way. The Urban Challenge features autonomous ground vehicles maneuvering in a mock city environment, executing simulated military supply missions while merging into moving traffic, navigating traffic circles, negotiating busy intersections, and avoiding obstacles.'" I'll be cheering, as long as the creepy robot bear isn't participating.
DARPA says its third-annual Urban Challenge program has the lofty goal of developing technology that will keep soldiers off the battlefield and out of harm's way.
We already have that. It's called congress. It's just broken right now.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
robot children soldiers ? The US used them in Burma in WWII,.
My entry, the mechanical turck is a shoo in to win it all.
Because the wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And their duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots.
Screw cars that will parallel park themselves, if they can make cars that navigate those abominations that are Traffic Circles, I'd buy THAT!
But I guess with a robotic army there won't any need to overreact to threatening situations and just kill all men, women, and children within a 200 yd. radius, like we're currently have to do in Iraq.
Nobody takes DARPA seriously since the radically changed the Grand Challenges rules every week and lied, denying that they ever changed the rules.
Start reporting on News for Nerds, not News for Suckers.
Andy Out!
God but I love technology! The old WWII vets are all worried about losing their mobility when the state determnes they're no longer fit to drive. By the time I'm that old (and I have gray hair and a white beard already) I'll have Sally.
Military implications? Pshaw, I want my car to drive me home when I'm too drunk to drive myself!
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
They aren't really soldiers then, are they?
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
Caveat I haven't had a chance to read the entire challenge to see if it answers this question. I'm in Iraq I have better things to do, sort of...
Does the vehicle have to be one piece? Specifically can it launch a UAV to provide a top down view of the street? This could be then used to avoid crowds (or head towards them), get around dead ends, and generally navigate the cities. The imagery we have is often horribly out of date and roads have moved, stopped existing, or new ones have popped up.
I think having an eye in the sky dedicated to the vehicle could be a tremendous asset.
I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
welcome our new diverless urban navigating car overlords.
Bonus points if they can kill/intimidate civilians indiscriminately without Congress finding out.
Dog is my co-pilot.
He's seriously been working for 18 hours a day for the last 3 weeks. He looks cracked out, but he's just DARPAed
aside from the fact any stop signs and road markings may now be a crater. Do many soldiers get stuck in traffic in the middle of a war zone?
Surely a better idea would be to train these vehicles to drive evasively once ambushed to stop supplies from not reaching the front line?
I for one never saw a traffic report from baghdad during the war...
civilians constitute a far greater number of dead in any war, especially the current iraq war. hell, the officials in government and industry dont even care enough to count how many civilians they kill while they are toodling around in their million dollar toy gun machines.
motherF this f@#$ bulls@#$, the so-called 'scientists' involved in this should go read up on world war II, in case they skipped that 'fluff subject' in school.
...one to find Sarah Conner in the nightclub wins.
Fully automated armoured infantry.
Deleted
An interesting choice for the "mock city" - it's layout makes it exactly like Tehran.
Hmm.
with the new suicide car bombers you won't even need to control them via remote. just open the factory door and auf Wiedersehen, vergessen Sie nicht zu schreiben. but that would never happen.
Automated robotic fighting vehicle? Sounds like a Bolo to me....
Upon closer inspection, one can see a little grey head not quite level with the dashboard. But I don't think these occupants have any connection to the vehicles' control.
Have gnu, will travel.
Is is just me, or does this seem like a way better deal than $20M Goog/NASA contest for getting to the moon.
I guessing that driving around in a city is at least 10 times easier than getting a rover to the moon.
Maybe Sergey should pony up more of his billions to make the moon contest less of a joke...
When will we, computer scientists, stop providing technologies to militaries ?
When will we stop preferring earning good amounts of cash in order to adopt basic moral positions ?
When will we stop working for armies who always name themselves "Defense" but only attack ?
Fuck the Darpa !
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_2:_Judgment_Day
The technology DARPA is interested in developing will be used for urban "warfare".
...
And the reason it will be used is that the casualty rate for humans involved in such "warfare"
is unacceptable. This is according to studies which were done by the Army War College,
as well as research done by independent firms whom the Pentagon paid to look into these
situations.
The upshot is, when the powers that be ( hint : look at the guys who are running the show
now in the US to get a glimpse of the future ) want to suppress domestic rebellion, the DARPA robotic
technology WILL be used against the population of the United States. Why ? There won't be
any problem with casualty rates, because machines don't have families which might object to
a loved one coming home in a bag, and because machines will do whatever their controllers
tell them to do, without objections.
And all you people can do is be charmed by the idea that technology can do yet another neat trick
Don't say I didn't warn you.
Now excuse me while I puke at the very thought of all you "educated fools".
Developing robots for urban warfare isn't exactly going to decrease civilian deaths or injuries. It's going to increase them. The only thing it will decrease is the reports of dead US soliders. A great example of the twisted focus on 'our' deaths came recently here in Australia. The 2nd Australian solider was killed in Afghanistan. Absolutely everyone on the mainstream media and 2-party political system is falling over themselves to declare our fallen solider a hero. But no-one ever talks about the thousands of hero is Afghanistan, such as men, women and children who 'soldier on' after having their loved ones killed and injured, and classified as 'collateral damage'. These are the real heroes - the innocent civilians who face incredible hardship precisely because of our military and economic meddling in their country. Instead of developing better killing systems, we should develop a more just society. To all those drones protest that we need to fight terrorism - get a grip - we're creating the terrorism. Remove the cause, and the symptom will disintegrate.
There is absolutely nothing good to come of this. Nothing at all.
One of the major side effects of the DARPA Grand Challenge series is that the supporting hardware has become much better. You can now buy most of the major components off the shelf. GPS/INS/compass/odometer navigation units are a few thousand dollars, rugged, and work well. When the first Grand Challenge was announced, the off-the-shelf solution cost about $170K and required 4U of rackmount space, with air conditioning. CMU actually used that in the first round.
LIDAR units have improved enormously in the last two years. Last time around, everybody just had single-beam line scanner LIDARs, usually from SICK, except for Team DAD, who built a multibeam scanner that worked but wasn't rugged enough. This time, the major players have multibeam LIDAR units from Velodyne or Ibeo. Velodyne's unit has 64 lasers on a spinning drum. Now you can image your entire environment in 3D at 5Hz.
Controlling the vehicle is easier, too. There are now cars available with electrical power steering and brakes, and one can tap into those systems to drive. And there are at least three vendors selling gear for remote/autonomous driving of existing cars.
So now it's almost entirely a software problem. You don't burn so much time and effort building sensor and actuator systems.
Too early in the morning. Correct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrdcddNx29c
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
There is a team in my county that is competing in this challenge. They have put out fliers before, looking for sponsors and manpower.
Here is their website: http://aimagic.org/html/agv_wendy_darling.html
The picture of the car in TFA is kind of wimpy compared with this team. Instead of trying to drive a car around a simulated city, they have outfitted a huge military truck. Here are some specs:
# M-215 Cargo Truck 2.5 ton
# GVW=18,560 lbs. Empty weight 14,460 lbs.
# GMC 2-1/2 ton
# AIM AutoPilot for driverless operation
# Six Wheel Drive
# Engine model GMC 302
# Displacement 302 cu. in. 130 hp at 3,200 rpm
# Four cycle, six cylinder