Fifteen Teams Selected for DARPA Grand Challenge

doughnuthole writes "The official posting has been made of the 15 teams that qualified for the Grand Challenge, seven of which completed the entire QID course. The top three teams, and thus those who get to start first, were the Red Team, SciAutonics II, and Team Caltech. The race starts at 6:30 am Saturday, with teams leaving every 5 minutes. A live webcast will be available at grandchallenge.org." Reader uss_valiant writes "Tomshardware runs an article about DARPA's Grand Challenge. It features new pictures, the DARPA video of the qualification and covers some technical challenges such as the obstacle detection."

waste of time?

[Un0r1g1nal]

And the odds on any of these machines even finishing the challange? Pretty slim, Red Team looks to have the best chances, pretty nice looking machine they've got going as well. All in the name of science and progression I guess .. but if the army vehicles auto targeting equipment couldn't distinguish the difference between a helicoptor and an incomming vehichle .. what are the odds on the software they put on the 'finished' development being any better? also pretty slim. May as well just spend the money on deveoloping the something worthwhile.

Following...

[SisyphusShrugged]

Following the freakin DARPA it appeared at first as if it was a serious, tough, attempt to automate vehicles.

However, time after time they reduce the requirements for qualifying, and basically continually reduce the prestige of the event, now they are allowing all 15 teams to race, even though only 7 finished the much easier race (The last race, only the Carnegie Mellon team actually completed!)

Re:Weird fact

[andy666]

Sorry, what can I tell you - I didn't get her number. She was too old for me.

But this is how DARPA works - it is very much an "Old boys" network. I was a postdoc in a robotics lab at a large university a few years back and we were competing for DARPA money for this project where robots walk up stairs. There was a DARPA guy who was a real colonel who would come to listen to presentations, and if he liked you then you got money. We didn't get the money. This was a project for a stair climbing robot, and the whole thing was a disaster, since none of the groups could make it work except with a hack - in other words only in very special situations. Anyway it made me really cynical about the whole DARPA robot thing. What they expect is incredibly unrealistic and results in people practically faking it.

Cop-out?

[gracefool]

According to previous [slashdot.org] comments [slashdot.org] at Slashdot, a map of the course has been leaked, meaning that entrants can cheat by pre-programming a course.

Helped program this as a Freshman

[Big Yak]

When I was a Freshman at CMU, I worked on a research programming project translating a bunch of the Navigation code for this self-driving HMMWV ("Hum vee"). It was originally written in C, and we converted it to Ada... though I bet it's been reverted back to a more versatile language.

It used multiple cameras mounted at different heights to build a 3D view of it's surroundings, and could judge all kinds of obstacles... though at the time (7 years ago) had a lot of trouble with streams and shadows. I was amazed that it could recognize stoplights correctly, and even signaled when it was changing lanes on a street.

Either way, it was a great project for a young would-be programmer to work on, very amazing stuff, and lots of cool toys to see in the Robotics Institute there.

Re:Cop-out?

[Saven Marek]

That sounds like a easy way to fool cheating people. A large test for true adaptability that will quickly weed out the lesser entrants

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Team Terramax - Incredible Vehicle

[bshroyer]

Team Terramax is a collaboration [oshkoshtruck.co.uk]between Oshkosh Truck and Ohio State University based on the MTVR, [usmc.mil] a six-wheeled, 425 HP, seven-ton truck.

I had the privilege of test-driving an MTVR on the obstacle course at their factory in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. This truck, fully loaded, could take on hills steeper than feel comfortable taking on in an ATV. We forded streams, climbed over barricades, and did steep side grades, all without breaking a sweat. I've got no doubt that this vehicle is up to the Grand Challenge, if the guys at OSU have their technology in order...

Re:Departure.

[ghostlibrary]

This suggests a neat strategy, "follow the pack". Just make a vehicle that follows either a) the leader or b) the largest group of vehicles, and let _them_ worry about the navigation issues.

Of course, this strategy assumes someone else will finish. Hmm... also, add a "kick in turboboost for the last 400 yards" feature to get a win. Boy that will tick off the others!

And, of course, fake AI etc to pass DARPA's initial checks so you get in the race after all. If someone actually did this and won, I wonder what DARPA would say :)