There's no way to prove there's not a midget hiding in there somewhere.

I hope that they televise it. It'll be bigger than NASCAR.

Haha, I just read about this in some magazine lying around the house... it looks cool.

Nice headline : )

NO FATE

Oh this is just way too farking cool.

{Absentmindedly wipes slobber with back of hand}

Caltech will win this one..

Terminator kicked T2's ass.

cyborgs everywhere protest.

non-image image URL? ah, whatever. wasn't that funny anyway.
http://www.vandammefilms.netfirms.com/images/covers/cyborgscore.jpg

Stairs will be incorporated in the highway to give this guy a fighting chance.

" Challenge vehicles must autonomously traverse the challenge route without human interface or control of any kind. The vehicles must perform general route selection and navigation to follow the Challenge route. Vehicles must sense their environment to perceive terrain features, ground conditions, obstacles, and other Challenge vehicles. They must intelligently control their speed and direction so as to avoid or accommodate all of the above. And they must do these things quickly- overall speed will be the deciding factor and the time limit is designed to push vehicle speeds far beyond current technologies."

Aiming a tad high, no ?

Number 5 is alive!

I don't see why they don't just give a HUMMER H1 a 20' lift kit, point it in the general direction of the destination, and then just put a brick on the gas pedal.

Versiondib, you are truly a student of the subtle school of robotics.

I'm getting sick of hearing about this every 3 months. No one will win this contest. It expires in 2007, but no one will win it by then.

They are offering a million dollar prize for billion dollar technology.

I believe that the actual motive of this contest is to assure people that terrorists don't have this technology.

I have to agree with swiftrhett... a self-orienting vehicle with proper sensors and enough code to take into account all obstacles will cost much more than 1 mil to build.

Stupid...

I work in an automotive research lab, and one of the groups has been hired to do this. This is a picture of the truck they're using.... I so want to drive it.


It has so many sensors, and a bunch of cool stuff on it.

One group said their entry cost $40,000. Another group budgeted $5 million. I don't see why they can't do it for $5 million--you pessimists are a bunch of losers. The DoD is flying autonomous aircraft (Not talking about the old-tech Predators that require human guidance) and you people think they can't get people to come up with vehicles that can drive themselves? JPL can do it millions of miles away, and they have a team in this contest.

I don't know if it will be won this year, but I think it will be won... the technology getting poured into the race by a few a of the teams is absolutely amazing.

As for the prize money, its mostly symbolic. DARPA has done a good job of basically making sure only those entries that have enough resources to be serious competitors get in, at which point its more for the recognition.

versiondub


I don't see why they don't just give a HUMMER H1 a 20' lift kit, point it in the general direction of the destination, and then just put a brick on the gas pedal.


I have 2 soulutions for this,

1. I would just put a flashing light on a tumbleweed and let it go.

2. Carrier Pigeon.

You think this is cool? You should se the UAV competition.

3. 155mm Howitzer with automatic aiming controls.

4. Tomahawk cruse missle.

5. ICBM

6. Al Gore (He's a robot, right.)

7. Glacier

JPL can do it millions of miles away, and they have a team in this contest.

If I recall correctly, JPL's vehicle that is millions of miles away is lucky to go 80 feet in a day. These vehicles need to go 200+ miles in 10 hours.

Question

What is to keep the compeditors from making a convincing looking robaot and hide a satellite transmitter/reciever in it and controle it from anywhere? I mean some of these are as big as trucks. How hard could it be???

What is to keep the compeditors from making a convincing looking robaot and hide a satellite transmitter/reciever in it and controle it from anywhere?
Well, probably the fact that they're going to tear apart the robots afterwards and see what makes them tick? Just a guess.

Hmmm, robots you say...

Why the fark would AT&T Satelite Internet offer them jobs?

Malawar

Well, probably the fact that they're going to tear apart the robots afterwards and see what makes them tick? Just a guess.

Well then we are going to have to go with the "Hummer and the brick" soulution. I think that would be the one most likley to suceed.

I think there's only one question to answer:

Do you have stairs in L.A.?

I might be over simplifying, but RTS games have had pathfinding for ages. See rock, wobble around rock, beeline, see tree, wobble around tree.

What's the real complication here? I mean, it looks like they are thinking entirely too much about this. The brick idea is excellent, but put some rubbery padding on the sides so if it tips it will bounce back upright. Oh, and maybe, just maybe, some kind of beacon at the finish for it to beeline towards... or something.

You're oversimplifying

I for one, welcome our new...oh nevermind.

The biggest hurdle is going to be overcoming the malaise that will strike the robot when it hits Barstow and it realizes it still has three hours to go before Vegas and it starts to question whose idea the road trip was in the first place...

Wait, sorry.. that was my bachelor party....

Two facts overlooked here that make this look simpler than it is:

1. The route is entirely off road with bushes, rocks and other unknown hurdles. Never been done before. (On road is easy and has been done with computers.)

2. It CANNOT be remote controlled (unlike the rovers JPL runs on Mars). The jeep has to navigate itself without any human input once started.

Perhaps if you could train a monkey to drive it...

I'm Sam Waterston, of the popular TV series "Law & Order." As a senior citizen, you're probably aware of the threat robots pose. Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.

Well, now there's a company that offers coverage against the unfortunate event of robot attack, with Old Glory Insurance.

Old Glory will cover you with no health check-up or age consideration. You need to feel safe, and that's harder and harder to do nowadays, because robots may strike at any time. And when they grab you with those metal claws, you can't break free, because they're made of metal, and robots are strong.

Now, for only $4 dollars a month, you can have peace of mind in a world full of crime and robots, with Old Glory Insurance. So don't cower under your afghan any longer. Make a choice. Old Glory Insurance: For when the metal ones come for you... and they will.

WARNING: Persons denying the existence of robots may be robots themselves.

If you read the rules out at DARPA there is a VERY slim chance that anyone will win this thing the first year.

1. They are given the route only a couple hours before the race.
2. You can't interact with the vehicle during the race
3. The route can backtrack, go in other directions then toward Vegas
4. You have to negotiate to a half way point for a pit-stop
5. The majority of the terrain will be off road but there will be some driving on public roads as well (stay of the highway that day)
6. If you are thinking of GPS remember that some driving will be under bridges, etc. and the vehicle could be out of contact
7. You have to drive fast (30+mph) to cover the distance (with the pit-stop) in the time allowed
8. You have to around other contestents (no knocking them off the road)

8. You have to around other contestents (no knocking them off the road)

Aww.. now that would be a televisable contest...

does it have to be a ground vehicle? An unmanned a/c with a little inertial navigation should do it rather quickly. It would be expensive, but the cost would be more than covered by the prize money, almost guaranteed by traversing the route in an hour or two.

I went looking fo pictures of vehicles that are suposed to be ready to race in a month. Strangely, there there didn't seem to be too many. I did find this though.
http://www.cacs.louisiana.edu/~arun/cajunbot/images/Gallery/Dsc00001.jpg

/I want to be a robot racer

That prize is ostensibly for making it all the way. I've read the fine print and it doesn't exclude the winner from demanding much more to share the required research. And not necessarily with DARPA.

Another issue I can see with the rules is that the ban on any form of physical human intervention en-route means that any racer would have to carry every drop of fuel it needs for the race, no refuels. I can't envision a gas station in the middle of a rural area that accepts electronic pre-payments at the pump. And I certainly can't envision a racer sophisticated enough with today's tech that can pump its own petrol.