Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Los Angeles Times
November 5, 2007 Eleven engineering groups joined a Pentagon-sponsored contest that sent self-driving vehicles through a 60-mile obstacle course. The winners took home $2 million.
By Associated Press
VICTORVILLE -- Members of a Carnegie Mellon University team of engineers and their tricked-out, driverless Chevy Tahoe known as "Boss" won $2 million for their victory in a Pentagon-sponsored robot race in the high desert, race officials announced Sunday.
Tartan Racing's "Boss" turned in the top performance Saturday as it navigated through an urban-style obstacle course at a former Air Force base set up by race organizers from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Guided by cameras, lasers and an onboard computer, the team's sport-utility vehicle merged with moving cars -- some piloted by stunt drivers -- navigated traffic circles and avoided obstacles at an average speed of 14 mph, said Norman Whitaker, program manager for the military agency's Urban Challenge.
"They did everything right: followed all the speed laws, stopped at the intersections," Whitaker said. "It was really a phenomenal performance."
A team from Stanford University won the $1-million second-place prize by designing a robotic vehicle that completed the course at a 13-mph average, while engineers from Virginia Tech received $500,000 for finishing third with a souped-up sport-utility vehicle that finished at 12 mph.
The robot rumble was held at the former George Air Force Base, which had been converted into a 60-mile obstacle course.
The urban road race was the third robotic competition sponsored by the military agency, which faces a congressional deadline to have one-third of its military ground combat vehicles unmanned by 2015.
Throngs of spectators turned out to cheer on the driverless vehicles as they drove through a mock city.
Vehicles were judged by their ability to safely complete the course within six hours while following all traffic laws.
"We started with the idea that we really wanted a vehicle that could drive as well as a beginning early driver," Whitaker said.
The 11 finalists that made it to Saturday's race were chosen from a field of 35 teams after a weeklong qualifying round. Six of the finalists crossed the finish line, but not everything went smoothly: One team was eliminated after its vehicle nearly charged into the former base's commissary building; another team's vehicle mysteriously pulled into a house's carport and parked itself.
But there were no collisions, except for a minor bumper tap that occurred when the Cornell team's vehicle started moving as the car from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology tried to pass it.
The inaugural race through the Mojave Desert in 2004 turned into a flop when the self-driving robots broke down. Five autonomous vehicles navigated a desert course in a 2005 encore, with Stanford taking home the $2-million prize.
This year's winners will now focus on the Google Lunar X Prize, in which the Internet search company will award $20 million to the first team to land an automated rover on the moon that can send back high-definition images and video, said team leader Red Whittaker, a Carnegie Mellon professor of robotics.
The team planned to use the $2 million won Saturday as seed money for the Google prize, but they may do a little celebrating first, Whittaker said.
"We're sure to reinvest in research and education, but the next team meeting might be in Cancun," he said.
The military agency is pressing the development of unmanned vehicles to make warfare safer by spurring development of self-thinking machines that could fight in war zones without remote controls. But many competitors said they wanted to make highway driving less dangerous.
Unlike in the past, the agency gave up to $1 million to several teams in return for some licensing rights to the technology that was developed.
November 5, 2007 Eleven engineering groups joined a Pentagon-sponsored contest that sent self-driving vehicles through a 60-mile obstacle course. The winners took home $2 million.
By Associated Press
VICTORVILLE -- Members of a Carnegie Mellon University team of engineers and their tricked-out, driverless Chevy Tahoe known as "Boss" won $2 million for their victory in a Pentagon-sponsored robot race in the high desert, race officials announced Sunday.
Tartan Racing's "Boss" turned in the top performance Saturday as it navigated through an urban-style obstacle course at a former Air Force base set up by race organizers from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Guided by cameras, lasers and an onboard computer, the team's sport-utility vehicle merged with moving cars -- some piloted by stunt drivers -- navigated traffic circles and avoided obstacles at an average speed of 14 mph, said Norman Whitaker, program manager for the military agency's Urban Challenge.
"They did everything right: followed all the speed laws, stopped at the intersections," Whitaker said. "It was really a phenomenal performance."
A team from Stanford University won the $1-million second-place prize by designing a robotic vehicle that completed the course at a 13-mph average, while engineers from Virginia Tech received $500,000 for finishing third with a souped-up sport-utility vehicle that finished at 12 mph.
The robot rumble was held at the former George Air Force Base, which had been converted into a 60-mile obstacle course.
The urban road race was the third robotic competition sponsored by the military agency, which faces a congressional deadline to have one-third of its military ground combat vehicles unmanned by 2015.
Throngs of spectators turned out to cheer on the driverless vehicles as they drove through a mock city.
Vehicles were judged by their ability to safely complete the course within six hours while following all traffic laws.
"We started with the idea that we really wanted a vehicle that could drive as well as a beginning early driver," Whitaker said.
The 11 finalists that made it to Saturday's race were chosen from a field of 35 teams after a weeklong qualifying round. Six of the finalists crossed the finish line, but not everything went smoothly: One team was eliminated after its vehicle nearly charged into the former base's commissary building; another team's vehicle mysteriously pulled into a house's carport and parked itself.
But there were no collisions, except for a minor bumper tap that occurred when the Cornell team's vehicle started moving as the car from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology tried to pass it.
The inaugural race through the Mojave Desert in 2004 turned into a flop when the self-driving robots broke down. Five autonomous vehicles navigated a desert course in a 2005 encore, with Stanford taking home the $2-million prize.
This year's winners will now focus on the Google Lunar X Prize, in which the Internet search company will award $20 million to the first team to land an automated rover on the moon that can send back high-definition images and video, said team leader Red Whittaker, a Carnegie Mellon professor of robotics.
The team planned to use the $2 million won Saturday as seed money for the Google prize, but they may do a little celebrating first, Whittaker said.
"We're sure to reinvest in research and education, but the next team meeting might be in Cancun," he said.
The military agency is pressing the development of unmanned vehicles to make warfare safer by spurring development of self-thinking machines that could fight in war zones without remote controls. But many competitors said they wanted to make highway driving less dangerous.
Unlike in the past, the agency gave up to $1 million to several teams in return for some licensing rights to the technology that was developed.
