Let's go to the robot races!
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Autonomous
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http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/
DARPA intends to conduct a challenge of autonomous ground vehicles between Los Angeles and Las Vegas in March of 2004. A cash award of $1 million will be granted to the team that fields the first vehicle to complete the designated route within a specified time limit.
A friend writes:
"Basically, DARPA is sponsoring a robot race for about 200 miles across the Mojave Desert on March 13. The robots cannot receive any signals or outside guidance during the race, they must stay on the ground (no flying) and they have to finish within 10 hours. The final course won't be made available until 2 hours before start. Each team will then receive a disc with a string of GPS coordinates on it that the robot has to follow. Robots will start staggered (not all at the same time) so that they won't get in each other's way too much.
"If there's no winner this year (no robot crosses the finish line at all or none do so under 10 hours), they'll do it again in 2005, 2006, and 2007 until either there is a winner or the money runs out. There were about 100 applicants to start with, but DARPA has culled them down to 20 to actually do the race. Some teams are using dune buggies, some are using military-surplus Humvees, some are using SUVs, some are using All-Terrain vehicles.
"I got most of my info from Scientific American."
(Thanks to FredA!)
DARPA intends to conduct a challenge of autonomous ground vehicles between Los Angeles and Las Vegas in March of 2004. A cash award of $1 million will be granted to the team that fields the first vehicle to complete the designated route within a specified time limit.
A friend writes:
"Basically, DARPA is sponsoring a robot race for about 200 miles across the Mojave Desert on March 13. The robots cannot receive any signals or outside guidance during the race, they must stay on the ground (no flying) and they have to finish within 10 hours. The final course won't be made available until 2 hours before start. Each team will then receive a disc with a string of GPS coordinates on it that the robot has to follow. Robots will start staggered (not all at the same time) so that they won't get in each other's way too much.
"If there's no winner this year (no robot crosses the finish line at all or none do so under 10 hours), they'll do it again in 2005, 2006, and 2007 until either there is a winner or the money runs out. There were about 100 applicants to start with, but DARPA has culled them down to 20 to actually do the race. Some teams are using dune buggies, some are using military-surplus Humvees, some are using SUVs, some are using All-Terrain vehicles.
"I got most of my info from Scientific American."
(Thanks to FredA!)
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