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DARPA Grand Challenge: A Battle of Wits (Robot Cars)

jalopnik.com — [Jalopnik's desert stringer Curtis Walker is following the DARPA Grand Challenge, an annual race of autonomous ground vehicles, with a serious case of the techies. We'll have his reports today on the National Qualifying Event semifinals, like this one, as soon as he can type them into his digital audio-visual receipt and transmission unit. - ed

Who dugg this? Made popular Oct 29, 2007

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  • hobbers, on 10/29/2007, -0/+4Question: If the autonomous vehicle gets to a 4 way stop and decides that someone else got there first, but that someone else doesn't budge, does the autonomous vehicle start to go? And then if they do go, and the other vehicle starts going at the same time, does the autonomous vehicle stop? And if they do stop and the other vehicle stops, how long do they wait to go again? How many times must this be repeated until the autonomous vehicle flips the other vehicle off?

    ... Get off the road if you can't drive people. Thanks.
  • jmpeagle, on 10/29/2007, -0/+4at least we won't have to work
  • garrerc, on 10/29/2007, -0/+2Be aware that this is the Urban Challenge and is thus different (in concept) from the previous Grand Challenges. The goal here is to navigate an urban environment - and obey traffic laws and more "human" aspects of driving like who goes first at a 4-way stop.

    Good luck to Little Ben and the Ben Franklin Racing Team!!
  • transparentsea, on 10/29/2007, -0/+2Saw team lux running this morning. They can't really compete with the likes of CMU and MIT. They're doing alright, but they almost got hit in traffic a few times. Cornell has done an extremely good job concealing their sensors as well, but they're one up on LUX. They got their plates right --- "SKYNET".
  • bongle, on 10/29/2007, -0/+2Here's all the RSS feeds for frequently-updated team blogs I've cobbled together from the team sites: http://www.cajunbot.com/blog_xml.php?cat=1 - CajunBot
    http://www.teamjefferson.com/?q=blog/4/feed - Team Jefferson
    http://pave.princeton.edu/main/feed/ - Princeton
    http://raceinformation.insightracing.org/ - Insight Racing (the Lotus Elise team)
    http://stingracing.wordpress.com/ - Sting Racing (Porsche Cayenne)
    http://cudgc.blogspot.com/ - Cornell
    http://teamvictortango.blogspot.com/ - Virginia Tech
    And these are sites I couldn't find RSS for, but also update frequently:
    http://www.tartanracing.org/blog - Tartan Racing/GM (Carnegie Mellon) (appears to be down right now)
    http://www.team-lux.com/ - Team LUX (from Germany)

    Finally, TGDaily has decent coverage from their on-scene reporters: http://www.tgdaily.com/index.php?searchword=urban+ ...
  • nreynolds, on 10/29/2007, -0/+2"digital audio-visual receipt and transmission unit." - that's the best way of saying phone/laptop I've ever heard.
  • legendxx, on 10/29/2007, -0/+2Go VT - http://www.victortango.com/
    Check out the blog for some videos: http://teamvictortango.blogspot.com/
  • FeartheKnighted, on 10/29/2007, -0/+2UCF (where I currently attend) has a subura outback that they are entering, I see it all the time hanging out by the engineering buildings, and it's amazing when you actually look inside, how the entire interior is ripped out and filled to the brim with all sorts of electronic components. I still haven't seen it drive it's self anywhere yet...
  • inactive, on 10/29/2007, -0/+1All I can think of when I see the pic of the grill for the Volkswagen Passat is HAL.
  • majordanger, on 10/29/2007, -0/+1So this year is an urban race...
    Here's a tip.. put some concrete lawn ornaments out and stay indoors while the robots are racing.
    I see the plot line for a disaster movie forming here.
    Uh, didn't we have a B movie about a driver less Caterpillar tractor that was possessed or haunted crawling over houses and killing people?

  • JWilly48519, on 10/29/2007, -2/+3One more baby step toward our genetically predetermined goal of obsoleting ourselves. 8^)
  • jmkiii, on 10/29/2007, -0/+1I forgot to mention that there is a video in there.
  • abandonedhero, on 10/29/2007, -0/+1My roomate is on the University of Utah team. Their stuff doesn't look nearly as sophisticated as MIT's, but then again I'm sure nobody's is.
  • bongle, on 10/29/2007, -0/+0The challenge takes place at an abandoned military base and the surrounding (also abandoned) suburbs. I don't know how they'll run the full one, but for the qualifying runs, they are _completely_ surrounded by concrete barriers.

    That said, your concerns aren't unfounded.
    Here's a video of the cayenne crashing into a barrier: http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/34579/113/
    Here's a video of a prius hopping a curb and popping a tire: http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/34582/113/
  • kytmizuno, on 10/29/2007, -0/+0go team Cornell
  • drewzhrodagu, on 10/29/2007, -0/+0Go Tartan Racing!
  • jmkiii, on 10/29/2007, -3/+2My brother works on this stuff at The University of Texas. He sent this out to our list serve few days ago. http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/edu ...

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