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CMU First To Qualify For DARPA Grand Challenge

Posted by timothy on Wed Mar 10, 2004 08:54 AM
from the pole-position dept.
Science Technology
Anonymous Coward writes "As of 18:00 March 9th, Carnegie Mellon's Red Team is the only entry to successfully complete DARPA's Grand Challenge Qualification Inspection and Demonstration (QID) before the main event on March 13th. The NY Times has this article detailing this first step towards winning the Grand Challenge."
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CMU First To Qualify For DARPA Grand Challenge 50 Comments More /

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  • Google News Version (Score:4, Informative)

    by byolinux (535260) on Wednesday March 10 2004, @08:57AM (#8520422) Journal
    No reg needed! [nytimes.com]

  • My University Too (Score:5, Informative)

    by rmohr02 (208447) * <mohr.42NO@SPAMosu.edu> on Wednesday March 10 2004, @08:57AM (#8520424)
    One of the other competitors [osu.edu] is from my university. Looking at the relative sizes, I hope the hummer in the article doesn't get in TerraMax's way.

    • Re:My University Too (Score:4, Funny)

      by MalaclypseTheYounger (726934) on Wednesday March 10 2004, @08:59AM (#8520442) Journal
      Immediately springing to mind is the scene from 'Ocean's Eleven' when the Monster truck is racing the R/C mini-monster truck, and it runs it over.

      This is the Department of Defense, after all, so maybe they will allow 'extra programming' to be done to find competitors (foes?) and destroy them?

      Turn this whole thing into a huge BattleBots contest instead of a Cannonball Run contest .. I'd pay to see that...

    • picture comparison (Score:4, Interesting)

      by morcheeba (260908) * on Wednesday March 10 2004, @09:41AM (#8520747) Journal
      Here's a size comparison [oshkoshtruck.com] from the Oshkosk website... their truck is 9 feet tall, a hummer is 6 feet.
  • Is it just me or does the Sandstorm bear a striking resemblence to "The Homer" [culttvman.com]?

  • Cost to PRIZE ratio. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by normal_guy (676813) on Wednesday March 10 2004, @08:58AM (#8520430)
    I can't be the only one who questions motives when the $1M prize is being sought after by a team with more than $2M already invested. What is the eventual payoff?
    • $4 and a dinner at Wendy's!

    • the real prize != money (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sczimme (603413) on Wednesday March 10 2004, @09:03AM (#8520469)

      The real prizes:

      the knowledge gained throughout the project

      getting one's name published for taking an active role in the project (which can lead to further opportunities)

      the overall experience, i.e. 'Hey, I did that"

      The pursuit of intellectual challenge is not about money...

    • Fame and name recognition. In the year 2050, you'll hear, "On the Chinese front, a Sandstorm batallion was attacked. There were, of course, no casualties, thanks to the autonomous technology pioneered in 2004."


      You've got admit that it'd be amazing to be credited with an 'historical' level invention.

    • Re:Cost to PRIZE ratio. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ethon (759020) on Wednesday March 10 2004, @09:13AM (#8520533) Homepage
      As stated in one of the replys to your post, the DoD will probably be offering a long term contract to manufacture similar vehicles for actual combat/whatever use. The DoD has already done this with the new-gen X planes, as seen on PBS' NOVA. [pbs.org] The DoD's JSF competition will probably end up paying the winner (Lockheed) some $1T in total contractual monies.

    • Re:Cost to PRIZE ratio. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ralph Wiggam (22354) on Wednesday March 10 2004, @10:39AM (#8521302) Homepage
      I've read a few articles about the Grand Challenge and they all seem to focus on CMU, the favorite. From what I understood, pretty much all of that $2M-$3.5M cost figure came in the form of free stuff from Intel, Boeing, and many others. It's not like the grad students are writing $150,000 personal checks to buy parts.

      The students probably can't pocket any prize cash anyway because of ethics rules. If they win, the students will get a rocking party and even more top notch equipment in their labs.

      It's not a race to prove you're better than the other teams and get prize money. It's a race to advance the state of a specific technology. Do you think people are going to get rich winning the X-prize?

      -B

  • i'd be more impressed if (Score:4, Interesting)

    by theguywhosaid (751709) on Wednesday March 10 2004, @09:06AM (#8520489) Homepage
    they divided your time by the cost of your machine.

    its impressive when you build a mega$ robot, but a minimal robot that manages to finish is way cooler

  • Interesting, but ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gravityZ (210748) on Wednesday March 10 2004, @09:11AM (#8520523)
    ... doesn't this basically lead directly to the US military dropping off Robo-Tanks in foreign countries as they please? We know that a steady diet of wars figure heavily in the plan [newamericancentury.org] for the forseeable future. The Robo-Tank cuts down on friendly casualties, thus making conflicts more palatable to the public.

    Now I find this as cool as anyone else, from a technological standpoint. And it definitely has civilian applicability. But let's face it, this contest isn't about finding cheaper ways to haul cargo or reach remote locations.

    • Re:Interesting, but ... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Belisarivs (526071) on Wednesday March 10 2004, @09:50AM (#8520843)
      But let's face it, this contest isn't about finding cheaper ways to haul cargo or reach remote locations.

      Sure it is. Logistics are a *huge* problem for the military, especially one that moves as fast as America's. Remember in Gulf War II that some of the most public incidents of American losses involved supply convoys, not front-line forces.

      With this sort of technology, supply-lines become more like conveyor belts than masses of convoys. They elminate the need to teams of humans to transport fuel, water, ammunition, etc. to the front lines. This increases the pool of human resources available to the military for other jobs, while eliminating the worry of casualities inflicted by enemy interdiction missions.

      Sure, automatic tanks will logically be a followup, but I think the military's mid-term goal is automating the logistics.

    • Re:Interesting, but ... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by demachina (71715) on Wednesday March 10 2004, @10:03AM (#8520962)
      Based on recent experience I would take the military's word for once, though only once. If you look at Iraq most of the casualties weren't in combat. Soldiers in fast moving, heavily armored, M1 tanks really weren't that vulnerable.

      Its probably going to be a real long time before you trust a robotic tank to discriminate friend or foe and to decide when and when not to start lobbing shells. Combat really should have a person in the loop who can react quickly to a complex and changing situation, one that often requires nuance. I wager an RPV tank is the only thing you may see anytime soon.

      But if you look at Iraq the place where the Army is VERY vulnerable is convoying supplies from one place to another since they are sitting ducks for improvised explosive devices and ambushes. I could see robotic transports as priceless for this if they can cope with a predefined route, not run anything over and deal with obstructions.

      Supply lines have always been the achilles heel of occupying armies. Indications are the U.S. military doesn't really need much help in the conflict phase, but it does need a lot of help to minimize the casualties and manpower needed to occupy its colonial empire.

      • AW&ST February 23rd... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by mykepredko (40154) on Wednesday March 10 2004, @11:32AM (#8521808) Homepage
        You might be interested in knowing that, according to AW&ST, the army/air force in Iraq has found in many cases that it is more efficient to transport cargo within Iraq via C-5, instead of 12 large trucks.

        The reason was because the loading and unloading areas could be secured but not the highways in between.

        Check out the February 23rd Issue.

        myke
          • The article (sorry not online) just gives the example of one C-5 being able to replace "12 heavy trucks".

            I would agree - I would expect a mix of C-17s, C-130s, CH-47s and CH-53s rather than using just C-5s.

            Just doing a Google search on the C-5, it is rated (from http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/c-5.htm) as having a "Fully Loaded" takeoff distance of 12,200 ft with a "Fully Loaded" landing distance of 4,900 ft. Maybe the strategy is to land a full aircraft and take off in a nearly empty one.

            Even in

  • Ack! (Score:5, Funny)

    by ferralis (736358) on Wednesday March 10 2004, @09:12AM (#8520528) Homepage Journal
    I would sure hate to be a geologist, prospector, or hermit in the desert that day.

    Gelogist: [mumbling to himself] Finally! Proof that the formation of this arroyo was caused by--

    [Geologist is flattened by an army of driverless cars driving at upwards of 60 mph, one of which detects the collision too late and actually backs up, running over him again, as failing avoidance mechanisms kick in]

  • How is this impressive? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dave420 (699308) on Wednesday March 10 2004, @09:15AM (#8520545)
    I know it's much more complicated than this, but they're giving it the knowledge to navigate a route, not the intelligence to come up with its own route. Surely that's missing the whole point of this competition? I read in the last /. article that they're using a loophole in the rules to get so far.

    Seeing as DARPA wants to turn this technology into a military robotic transport, I don't know how valuable it's going to be if it has to be pre-programmed with terabytes of data just to move. What about if they invade somewhere they don't have good maps of? Somewhere with a dynamic landscape (desert, rocks etc)?

    I'm all for innovation, but exploiting poorly-worded rules just to win for winning's sake is an empty victory at best.

    • Re:How is this impressive? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Tom7 (102298) on Wednesday March 10 2004, @09:34AM (#8520689) Homepage Journal
      From what I understand, the "loophole" allows them to use 1m satellite imagery of the route and, in two hours, plan something for the robot to follow. The robot still has to see its way when it's going, to avoid ditches and rocks and other things--it needs to do "local" route planning at 35mph. Even if the route were totally pre-programmed, the problem of following that route would still be pretty hard over hundreds of miles. You can't just do "dead reckoning."

      What about if they invade somewhere they don't have good maps of? Somewhere with a dynamic landscape (desert, rocks etc)?

      This is in the desert, and they're doing it with only satellite imagery.

      There's a huge amount of mechanical and software engineering in this thing. I think that someone must have exaggerated this "loophole" to you, because it is far from making the project easy (as far as I know, it doesn't help them in the quals at all). The robot is impressive!

      • So they have hundreds of terabytes of information in the back just for shits and giggles? Why isn't anyone else taking that path?

        It doesn't have to think about navigating - they're telling it how to do that. It has to only deal with getting round obstacles in its path. They're removing 1/2 of the problem so they can put their effort behind the other half, which the other teams aren't doing. It just smacks of unfairness, that's all.

    • Red Team is using "the best map in the world" to guide it. They have used topo maps, aerial photography, and a bunch of undergrads to painstakingly map out the terrain of the possible courses.

      All competitors are given the actual route as a series of GPS waypoints a few hours prior to the race. Red Team is going to send those waypoints back to CMU, have the big iron there figure out the best course based on all the map data, and then download that course to the robot prior to the start. In a way this is cool, but it seems like they are using a loophole. A much more interesting problem would be to navigate a course that you know nothing about other than the waypoints.

      The other teams are using techniques that require more onboard intelligence and route finding. The most interesting vehicle is from Cal. They have a motorcycle. Even though I went to Stanford I am rooting for the Cal motorcycle to do well since they have the most unique vehicle. Hopefully the team of Stanford alums (already dropped out) can come back next year and beat them.

      • The point of the Darpa project is to advance technology for driverless military vehicles, primarily for convoy work. To my mind, creating a computer system to quickly plan out routes based on intelligence is an important part of a practical solution.

        Not only does it more accurately reflect the technology's intended use-case in the military field (convoy operators would lilely be given a general route a couple hours before a mission, instead of simply told, 'get it to this point and leave right now') but it
    • I'm not sure that it is a loophole. It's not as challenging as doing it the other way, but let's face it, this is being done for the military, and you're extremely naive to think that the military doesn't have precise topography maps of the entire world, or that they can't obtain such maps in short order. Remember, a key component to cruise missile technology is topography. Remember in GWI, the cruise missiles took hours and hours to program before launch. Now, they can be reprogrammed in minutes.

      So,
    • This is no different from you getting in your car, looking at a map to find out the best route to get from point A to point B and memorizing what turns you have to take at certain key points. But the map doesn't show every little bend in the road, every little obstacle, elevation changes, etc. You have to do all that while you're driving the roads. The autonomous vehicle has to do the same things. You don't think that's impressive?

      The point of the competition is not to come up with a route. It's to simulat

  • QID (Score:4, Funny)

    by j0hnfr0g (652153) on Wednesday March 10 2004, @09:23AM (#8520606)
    The Qualification Inspection and Demonstration was rumored to be the state's Driver's License Test.

    The vehicles had been fretting about the dreaded parallel parking portion of the test.

  • Check out March 2004's PopSci... (Score:5, Informative)

    by PieEye (667629) * on Wednesday March 10 2004, @09:38AM (#8520726)
    Popular Science has a great article in the March 2004 edition (online here at PopSci.com [popsci.com]) called "Clash of the Headless Humvees".

    Weird title, seeing how they showcase the CMU entry, a high-school entry running in an Acura (donated by a parent who works for Honda) and a single-member "team" trying to do a motorcycle entry.

  • Put me on the team! (Score:3, Funny)

    by loac (585499) on Wednesday March 10 2004, @11:51AM (#8522017)
    I could have saved them $250,000 in sensors by installing a $100 roll bar!

  • I was there (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Kallahar (227430) <kallahar@quickwired.com> on Wednesday March 10 2004, @12:12PM (#8522178) Homepage
    I went by the event yesterday as a spectator and got to see Red Team do their run. Of the 23 teams who made it this far, they're the only one that has completed the qualification course so far. People complain that they have a more accurate map and that they're not doing real AI, but based on their performance on this surprise course, they have a real obstacle avoidance system.

    In one section there was a minivan parked in the center of the GPS path. Of the eight vehicles I saw run, only three made it past the car. Three hit it, and the rest failed before making it that far.

    It seemed that the biggest problems teams had were getting GPS right. Several drifted off course or turned the wrong way, going off course. One got the next GPS coord inside of its turning radius so it kept circling a spot until they turned it off.

    Lots of great designs though, and some really impressive engineering.

  • DARPA now has live website (Score:3, Informative)

    by citanon (579906) on Wednesday March 10 2004, @12:25PM (#8522351)
    You can look at the latest pictures, the teams' relative positions, and status charts.

    http://www.grandchallenge.org/

  • PCI-Express = Good for Race? (Score:3, Informative)

    by citanon (579906) on Wednesday March 10 2004, @01:13PM (#8522979)
    Towards the end of this year, PCI-Express and next generation graphics cards using them will come to market.

    How is this significant for the DARPA race?

    Well, newer generation graphics cards with highly programmable graphics pipelines can act as very powerful SIMD processors. Up until now, their capability has not seen much use outside of graphics because the AGP bus allows data to travel at full bandwidth in only one direction at a time. This meant that every time you need to download data from the video card, you had to flush the AGP bus, loosing or delaying the uploaded data.

    With PCI-Express, data could travel both ways concurrently at full bandwidth, so there's the potential for using the graphics card as a specialized SIMD processor.

    I bet much of the processing for the vision and obstacle avoidance could be done on a GPU. If that's the case, instead of having a 1.5 gigaflops CPU per pc, you could have 10 or 20 gigaflops (IIRC) of processing power at your disposal for little over $1000, thus making the necessary computing hardware much cheaper.

    Currently, the CMU team, for example, has multi-itanium servers aboard their Hummer, which is NOT something doable on a shoe string budget.

  • Wrong vehicles... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Upright Joe (658035) <uprightjoe AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday March 10 2004, @02:23PM (#8523801) Homepage
    Man, these teams are using the wrong military vehicles. Humvees? Supply trucks? What the hell is that? Seriously man, strap a GPS system onto an M1 Abrams and open that baby up.

    I say screw collision avoidance. Go for collision dominance. Any obstacle capable of stopping a 65 ton tank travelling at 45mph is gonna show up on the mother f**king map.

  • DARPA Grand Challenge Photos (Score:5, Informative)

    by big_ara (760977) on Wednesday March 10 2004, @02:26PM (#8523838)
    I am at the DARPA grand challenge right now.

    Here are some photos:

    DARPA Grand Challenge Photos [mit.edu]

    Enjoy!

    • The whole point behind an SUV is that, under current regulations, it's classified as a light truck, and so doesn't have some of the environmental restrictions that come with sedans, etc.

      • Re:Cool (Score:4, Informative)

        by Morologous (201459) on Wednesday March 10 2004, @10:34AM (#8521238)
        It's all about CAFE. Dodge's PT Cruiser is listed as a light truck too -- it's got a flat-load floor between the rear wheels. Dodge puts a four cylinder in the PT, which gets 30 MPG. This allows them to make even more fuel-hungry trucks and SUVs because their combined average is offset by the relatively high efficiency PT.

        • Re:Cool (Score:3, Interesting)

          by dave420 (699308)
          That's another thing - they only look the part - if a mountain popped up you'd have more chance getting over it by foot than a humvee. They use Tacoma or Silverado chassis and engines, with a much larger body shell (resulting in the insanely low mpg and silly look). Range Rovers are the complete opposite, however. Efficient and excellent offroaders. Why won't people learn? :-P

          • Re:Cool (Score:5, Informative)

            by Zathrus (232140) on Wednesday March 10 2004, @11:16AM (#8521633) Homepage
            That's another thing - they only look the part - if a mountain popped up you'd have more chance getting over it by foot than a humvee. They use Tacoma or Silverado chassis and engines

            Whoa. Only half true.

            The original Hummer/Humvee (Hummer is the civilian version, HMMWV is the military) is a serious off-road vehicle and far surpasses most SUVs and other off-road vehicles in capabilities. It also costs around $125k (civilian version). It'll keep going long after that Range Rover gets stuck or busts its oil casing.

            The H2, aka Hummer2, however, is another story entirely. It is, as you say, merely a Tacoma with a different body shell. The original Tacoma wasn't particularly off-road capable and the reshelled version is even less so. But it's only about $60k.

            IMO, neither the original nor the bastardized step-son is particularly well suited for general civilian use. But that's me.
    • Actually it DARPA specifically required that no government agency help allowed. (though universities are quasi government, but you now..) Anyways I heard that the university that developed software that went on the mars rover also has a different team that worked on this project, but wasn't allowed to use the software. Though it probably wouldn't have worked as the rover goes real slow and spends a lot of time analysising the environment to get the safest path. This project will require real time calculatio
    • Caltech manages JPL, the NASA lab that developed the rovers and their associated software.

      Originally, the Caltec team was using rover software. However, when DARPA changed contest rules a couple months ago, it went back on its earlier ruling and said that Caltech was no longer allowed to use the rover software because that software was not commercially available.

      This led to Caltech redoing much of the work on their vision software. They are now using the modified version of a commercial vision package.
    • which method is likely to come up with the more innovative solution?

      you think this is a bad idea? they have how many engineers and people working on the problem? and if they used a 100 million and a team of lockheed martin?
      and you think this is WRONG?

    • Re:The biggest issue I have.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zathrus (232140) on Wednesday March 10 2004, @11:24AM (#8521727) Homepage
      with this is simply how cheap the US military is getting away with this

      Getting away with what? Basic R&D?

      So you'd rather have them spend a few billion on a single supplier, who may not be able to deliver anything, and then keep all the technology as classified for an unknown period of time? Yeah, that's a great use of taxpayer money.

      Instead, they put out a challenge that allows both public and private industry to participate. Any useful technology could be immediately spun off for commercial use, and considerably less taxpayer funds are used (yes, public universities will use some taxpayer money as well, but it pales in comparison to the alternative).

      Oh, and they're still not "getting away" with anything. DARPA doesn't automatically get the technology. If they get a winner then they'll have to negotiate licensing terms.

    • Re:Broadcast? (Score:4, Informative)

      by qedigital (545151) on Wednesday March 10 2004, @10:40AM (#8521307) Homepage
      You can check out DARPA's satellite feed on Saturday:

      From http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/media_feeds.ht m [darpa.mil]

      On Saturday, March 13, DARPA will provide same-day coverage via satellite of the Grand Challenge start and highlights at the following times:

      Live coverage of the start: 6:30 - 8:30 Pacific/9:30 - 11:30 a.m. Eastern
      Video news release: 11:00 - 11:30 a.m. Pacific/2:00 - 2:30 p.m. Eastern

      Coordinates for both feeds:
      Satellite: AMC 9, Ku, Transponder 03
      Space is: 36 MHz
      Downlink Frequency: 11760.000
      Downlink Polarity: Vertical

      Hopefully someone will record these feeds and make them available online for all of us without satellite

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