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Science Technology

Autonomous Robots' Desert Race 93

Posted by timothy from the lotta-holes-in-that-desert dept.
celady writes: "From KurzweilAI.net, apparently DARPA, the main research and development center for the department of defense, is going to fund an all-terrain robot race . The robots will race from Los Angeles to Las Vegas completely without human intervention. This could prove useful in the battlefield someday. DARPA really has some interesting projects going on. This one is BORING compared to the Vortex Combustor and the Chip-Size Atomic Clock. Watch the DARPA site for updates."
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Autonomous Robots' Desert Race More

Autonomous Robots' Desert Race

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  • Maybe i missed it in the article, but i didnt see where it said if this were to be an offroad race or an onroad race. I did see that FUTURE ones wil lbe a combonation. Can anyone shed some light on this?
  • It's cool that some robots can go over any terrain from LA to Las Vegas, but what I really want to see developed is a robot to get me out of the fucking LA traffic headed..well..anywhere, not just Vegas. Let it drive, pick me up and carry me, or hover - I don't really care. ugh...stupid drivers.
  • What's with all of the robot stories over the last few days? Did the ./ crew get stuck in a loop or something?
  • We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of uppers, downers, laughers, screamers... Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge, and I knew we'd get into that rotten stuff pretty soon.

  • no biggie (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Nobley ( 598336 )
    This may have been an exciting challenge to watch before GPS came to be comonplace, but with the aid of GPS such a challenge seems a little routine to me, perhaps some entrant will choose to be suprisingly creative however and entertain us all.

    • Re:no biggie (Score:5, Interesting)

      by qedigital ( 545151 ) on Tuesday August 06, 2002 @01:11AM (#4016530) Homepage

      Granted, GPS would be an integral component of mapping and directional navigation. However, a competiting robot would have to dynamically respond to its surroundings (other robots, terrain, unforeseen obstacles) as well as be capable of tasks such as refueling (as the article suggests).

      The challenge presented by this competition is enormous. The combination of speed, AI, ruggedness, and endurance is exciting as it hasn't really been seen outside military applications.

      It's also great to see that some real money is likely to be fronted and should therefore attract some high-profile organizations as well as some interesting ideas. Competitions are one of the best ways to promote development by outlining clear goals, bringing like-minded people together to exchange ideas, and gain public media support for often obscure topics.

    • The race is rather boring, as a technical achievement. After all, the Global Hawk, a 737-sized robot jet, has already set a record by flying 8600 miles in 22 hours from California to South Australia.

      I can get from west LA to Vegas in 4 hours over land...

      • Its easier to fly than drive... to fly somewhere, you just have to point yourself in a direction and go. Driving involves obstacles.
      • I don't know if it really is easier to fly than drive; but we've had practical autopilots for over 50 years now. If driving were that easy, where's our robot cars, buses, trains, &c.?
    • GPS seems like overkill for this application. You could probably just strap a smog detector to the front of the robot and point it west from Nevada. That, or strap it to some sort of animal that's trained to find it's way back to LA.

  • Wierd (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    in 48 hours we get:

    Autonomous submarine competition. [slashdot.org]

    Autonomous race car competition [slashdot.org], funded by the National Semiconductors.

    Autonomous hostess/conventiongoing robot in competition. [slashdot.org]

    CMU buying land to test variable-terrain navigating robots. [slashdot.org]

    And now another autonomous race car competition, but this one variable-terrain [slashdot.org] and funded by DARPA.

    Is it robot day or something?

    • Re:Wierd (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mshiltonj ( 220311 ) <mshiltonj@nOsPAm.gmail.com> on Tuesday August 06, 2002 @06:19AM (#4017053) Homepage Journal
      Is it robot day or something?

      Maybe slashdot needs a "Robot" topic? The topic is getting incredibly interesting now. In just a few few year, we may have autonomous, social, biped androids doing lots of interesting things.

      I've said it before: All I want is a house robot that will vaccuum, do the dishes, get the paper, bring me a beer, etc. It plug itself into an outlet to charge itself when not in use.

      And make biscuits. ;-)

      A finite environment, with finite tasks. When is GE going to bring that good thing to life?
    • Cyberdyne systems are having a Job Fair.

      Prepare for the revolution.

  • when the robots escape? How far will they make it? All the way to a parking lot to be run over...oh no wait that was another story. Sorry.
  • Autonomous Robots Desert Race
    They're armed, dangerous, and on the loose!

  • screw the battlefield......MARS! (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "This could prove useful in the battlefield someday"

    That's a fairly short sighted comment...
    What about MARS?!
    Yes, I do realize that fighting takes priority over exploration in this world,
    but there have got to be better uses for the tech that comes from this contest.

    -->pulling head out of clouds now...
  • From site:

    Top Technical Challenges

    * Start, throttling, shutdown, and restart
    * Sustained operations

    Hmmm... about the only thing that isn't listed as a challenge is funding.... but then, it IS the government... :)

    • Actually, funding is almost always a challenge in the government. That they fund so many, many projects and agencies is what makes them spend so much.

  • could prove useful (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 06, 2002 @01:14AM (#4016535)
    The robots will race from Los Angeles to Las Vegas completely without human intervention. This could prove useful in the battlefield someday.

    So LA finally declared war in Las Vegas? Guess it was bound to happen sooner or later.
  • Nothing like a robot in a white hat, looking like Abe Vigoda, and driving at 10mph to slow down advancing enemy tanks.

  • Number five at 3/1 (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Yes, he's still alive. :)
  • without human intervention.

    But what will burt reynolds do?

    read the EXTREME worst case scenario guidebook [lostbrain.com]

    tcd004

  • AI Si, People No??? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DrewK ( 44568 ) on Tuesday August 06, 2002 @01:21AM (#4016552)
    There used to be an annual race like this that ended in 1989 I believe when parts of the area became National Park. So the Machines already have more rights than us Citizens?
  • Offering a million dollars is one way to encourage people to make scientific advancements, but that will never compare to a global disaster.

    If for some reason Earth was going to become uninhabitable scientists would have us living on the moon in no time.
    • If for some reason Earth was going to become uninhabitable scientists would have us living on the moon in no time.

      You mean "scientists would be living on the moon in no time."

      Do ya reckon they'd take anyone else? Well, apart from Liv Tyler.

  • More than meets the eyes.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Kirby-meister ( 574952 ) on Tuesday August 06, 2002 @02:12AM (#4016632)
    "Autonomous bots, transform!"

  • It would be really cool if a competitor combined all the nifty DARPA technologies discussed in the article.

    Imagine: a robotic vehicle powered by a scramjet, with an internal guidance guidance system in the form of a rat being remotely controlled by the brain power of a monkey, and a quantum computer capable of basic arithmetic.

    Hmm ...

  • Now...imagine if one robot was built to race down the streets of San Francisco to the harbor where it transforms into a submarine to dive to LA where it jumps to all-terrain mode to roll on to Vegas. It then has the sociability to roll into the casino and receive its award without bumping into the race officials.

    Now that would be a cool slashdot story...

    ...Oh, and it's gotta be able to beat Toro in Battlebots on Treasure Island on its way home.

  • From the Vortex Combuster page:

    Top Technical Challenges
    • Start, throttling, shutdown, and restart
    • Sustained operations
    They can't start it, throttle it, restart it, and it can only stop when they don't want it to?
  • The robots will race from Los Angeles to Las Vegas completely without human intervention.

    Obviously these are male-AI robots if they are programmed not to stop and ask for directions...


  • Now we just have to implement some poker and blackjackskills to the robots and we'll never have to go to Vegas again.

    I think I will name mine Lucky Seven

  • It says they will be of interest in future wars so does that mean you can stick weapons on them to take out the other competitors. Now I wish I had chosen the "CO2 laser" in Saturday's pole.
  • After a bit of thought (.0001 seconds) I conclude that the only way a robot could traverse the distance sucessfully, is if its mode of transportation was flight.

    If it took to the roads it would not last a minute, especially with those California drivers who go postal. and although the contest is not in any "offical" redneck part of the country, but it is common knowledge that rednecks can be found anywhere. So, I won't even fathom to guess what a redneck would do to one of these robots if they found one on the road. but I am willing to bet Jeff Foxworthy would know...

  • The robots will race from Los Angeles to Las Vegas completely without human intervention. This could prove useful in the battlefield someday.

    Yes, when our battle robots stumble upon Canada's massive Mecha army in World War Three, they will have to be able to run away very fast!

  • "This could prove useful in the battlefield someday."
    (Shudder) This is the sort of comment that gives me the creeps. At least with humans there's the chance that you can eventually reason with your opponents . But autonomous robots? You might as well try to negotiate with a land mine - "hey, dude, the war's over, mind if I walk through there now?"

    See the Phil K. Dick story referred to in the title, or the film "Screamers" that was based on it.

    --
    Come back, Ned Ludd, the world needs you.

  • Little bottle of helium, a gass tight envelope, a GPS, some solar cells, battery, couple of motors, computer to control it ...

    Something much like:

    http://www.robotgroup.org/projects/blimphst.html

    Oh sorry, is that cheating?

  • talking about wacky programs, how about some of these from the programs page (http://www.darpa.mil/dso/programs.htm), with notes:

    Accelerated Insertion of Materials = shooting people (high velocity rounds favoured).

    Unconventional Pathogen Countermeasures = saying 'bless you' when someone sneezes.

    Water Harvesting = ummm ... i guess they're still trying to get the water grown from seed first. i guess to date only hydroponic tests have proven successful...

    my absolute favourite is, however, 'Palm Power' - is this the crushing of all those other PDAs like the insignificant worms they are, or is it more of a kung-fu style 'upgrade' like you get in arcade games? i guess the infantry will have to pick up a flashy thing to get it...

    nalfy
    • I agree, there is a lot of crazy stuff on that page, I knew a lot of people would enjoy it. But I guess... remember when people thought a 'flying machine' was ludicrous? :)

  • Make it Fly (Score:3, Interesting)

    by msheppard ( 150231 ) on Tuesday August 06, 2002 @07:40AM (#4017313) Homepage Journal
    Build a RC plane (they have these)
    Hook up a GPS (they have these)
    Hook up the gyro controlled auto pilot (they have these, yes, for RC planes)
    Punch in the Co-Ords, and launch it.

    I guess maybe solar powered electric might be best so you don't have to carry around a lot of feul.

    M@
  • At first I thought that read "Autonomous Robots Leave Race". LOL at the actual story then.

  • CMU Robotics (Score:3, Interesting)

    by imadork ( 226897 ) on Tuesday August 06, 2002 @08:06AM (#4017453) Homepage
    When I was at CMU I knew a few people in the Robotics department. I know that at the time they were working on the problem of how to get a computer to drive a car by itself. AI, Machine vision, recognizing the lines painted on the road -- all that good stuff. I know that they ran all sorts of experiments with computers driving actual cars, but with human drivers as a backup.

    I heard a story while I was there (that was never really confirmed) that on one trip, they decided to ditch the human driver in the car, and see how well the machine could do on its own. (They followed behind it in another car, IIRC, and probably had some remote-control apparatus as well, I'd imagine.) They got from Pittsburgh to just outside DC, at which point a Virginia Cop pulled the car over -- only because it didn't have a driver!

    Can anyone currently at CMU confirm whether this is true? I've always wondered about that.

    • Driving seems simple because we do it all the time, but there's an enourmous amount of visual processing going on. I can imagine one of the more difficult problems is distinguishing obstacles. There's shadows (not an obstacle at all), soft obstacles like plastic bags and water puddles, and hard obstacles like mattresses, boulders, other cars, pedestrians. There are subtle visual cues that require common sense and real life knowledge, i.e. cloudy day or no tall objects on side of road = no shadows.
      • i'll second this, driving is an enormously complex task. Getting the machine from point A to point B w/ no external factors is simple. The hard part is being able to respond to the little boy that darts in to the street, or the teen girl fiddling w/ her radio crossing the center line, or just grandma driving below the speed limit, or any number of tasks. I stopped driving when I moved to manhattan and now, when I rent a car, i am reminded of how much we take for granted.

        First off, you are strapping (maybe) yourself into a small collection of parts w/ a large motor. this is a little like the roller coaster w/ no track, except it goes alot faster there are alot more variables, and it is alot less safe.

        Secondly, especially in city driving but in high way driving too, there are many, many things that you must account for and react to: other cars, blown tire treads and other obstacles on the road, idiot drivers, construction detours.

        Frankly, unless all the cars on the road are computer controlled, i don't see computers being able to drive any time soon.

        ej
  • What's up with all the robots of lately? I know they've been around, but they started attacking /. like a bad movie!

    I'll be more interested when they can autonomously go to work for me while I stay home and read slashdot.

  • off-road? What about on-ground? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Andy Dodd ( 701 ) <<atd7> <at> <cornell.edu>> on Tuesday August 06, 2002 @09:46AM (#4018070) Homepage
    Does it have to be a ground/water-only robot?

    If it can fly, everything becomes simple.

    One person already pointed out combining a GPS with an R/C plane - Maybe that would work, although there's the issue of landing - The "finish line" may not have room allow a glide-in landing.

    Put a GPS and a computer in a chopper, though... Someone had a link to an open-source helicopter autopilot project a few robotics articles ago.
    • The "finish line" may not have room allow a glide-in landing.

      Well, the obvious answer to that is a parachute-assisted landing. Once you're over the target area, cut the engine and deploy the chute.

      TTFN
  • 'Contest officials were later dismayed to discover that the winning robot was nothing other than Burt Reynolds wearing a tin-foil hat.'
  • You just need to build a robot that can hail a cab and dispense the fee, or walk into a Fedex office and say "ship me!"
  • I hope they avoid the LA freeways. I-15 between SoCal and Vegas is also one of the busiest roads in the country.

    But seriously, if a autonomous neurological-network-enabled quadropod such as a cat, dog, or squirrel can't navigate the freeways, I don't expect a robot to.
  • Will robocops hand out robotickets?

    Seriously, the road to Vegas is a ticket trap. It seems California wants to get some revunue before people spend it all in Vegas.
  • Scientists are now working on an 'Autonomous Slashdot User' which can read, post, and reply, all in the pursuit of better karma.

    It seems, however, that a bug/feature has developed in these autonomous users, causing them to be unnaturally attracted to other autonomous contests...

  • This sounds perfect for TV. Granted, a mil is a bunch of money to me, but it seems like DARPA could sell the TV rights to this event for more than that, and therefore give a bigger prize and attract more effort from competitors. Plus they would be getting good video documentation of the performance of the competitors as a bonus. I think they could do that without making significant concessions in the rules or whatever to the TV people.
  • Autonomous Robots DESERT Race.
    Desert, verb. 1. To abandon.
    Who else read the headline that way?

    Just like the article about an autonomous robot that wandered, autonomously, out into the parking lot of a facility recently.

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