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The 2007 DARPA Grand Challenge

High geekdom indeed! The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been issuing a Grand Challenge to roboticists and putting their money where their mouth is with a one million dollar purse (recently up to $2M). The idea is that an autonomous vehicle has to navigate a 150 mile course through the Mojave Desert (finish line was in Vegas Baby!). Here are my previous entries: 2004, 2005 The 2004 Challenge was not successful -- the best vehicle was only able to get seven miles. The 2005 Challenge had five teams complete the course with the fastest team winning the $2M purse. DARPA decided to mix things up a bit for the next Grand Challenge. The 2007 entries will have to deal with human vehicular traffic and obey traffic laws (signs and lights). From the New Scientist:

Robot cars will race in real traffic
The first 11 teams for a race in which robot cars will jostle with real ones along mocked-up city streets have been announced. The teams must construct autonomous vehicles to navigate an unfamiliar urban environment in the shortest time possible.

The robot racers will face a "simulated" urban course 96 kilometres (60 miles) in length in November 2007. The course will feature urban obstacles, such as trees and buildings, traffic signs and other moving vehicles. Its location is yet to be disclosed.

The contestants must obey traffic regulations. As well as merging with other traffic, changing lanes and observing stop signs, the robo-participants will have to pull into a parking lot for a short period. The first three vehicles to complete the course in less than 6 hours will be awarded prizes.

The event is called the Urban Grand Challenge and organised by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). It is the follow-up its original Grand Challenge, a robotic race across a 212 km desert course, which was successfully completed in October 2005.

Very cool! Here is the DARPA website: The DARPA Urban Challenge Here is the 2005 winning vehicle from Stanford: Posted by DaveH at October 5, 2006 8:14 PM