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Science Technology

DARPA's Autonomous Vehicle Challenge Too Popular? 180

Posted by simoniker from the wacky-races dept.
Tim writes "Mobilerobotics.org has an editorial accompanying a copy of a letter to one of the teams entering the DARPA Grand Challenge 1 million dollar autonomous vehicle race, in which DARPA admits to underestimating the number of teams that can actually partipate in the actual race. They figure they've only got room for 20 teams, and more than 100 have applied. The writer of the editorial argues that if more than 20 teams can qualify safely and technically, DARPA should have to chose the 20 cheapest financed teams. What should DARPA do to sort out these problems?" CNET News has more on the high turn-out, while DARPA ponders its next step.
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DARPA's Autonomous Vehicle Challenge Too Popular? More

DARPA's Autonomous Vehicle Challenge Too Popular?

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  • use the old battlebots arena
  • well once i forgot to put the parking brake on and my car autonomously rolled down the hill and crashed into a couple of cars in a new car dealership.

    can I have a million dollars? please? aw come on...

  • Easy... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by i.r.id10t ( 595143 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @05:31PM (#7381128)
    100 contestants, room for 20 on the course... run 5 heats! Top 4 from each go on to final heat of 20...

    • I agree. Why is this such a big deal?

      Maybe their "big thinkers" are busy planning more wacky ideas like the terrorism stock market website, leaving little time to solve these other complex logistical problems.

      • Re:Easy... (Score:5, Informative)

        by kfg ( 145172 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @05:50PM (#7381336)
        Why is this such a big deal?

        The course.

        Just the number of local jurisdictions that this race will pass through makes the logical approach undoable because of the logistical requirements.

        I'm involved a bit in ultramarathon cycling and they go through the same problems all the time. State Police, County Sheriff, City Police, everyone with a badge and permit application form gets in on the act and you have to coordinate them all.

        One numnut in the middle of the course who'll only let you do it on Tuesday, but only if the moon is full, fucks the whole deal if everyone else will only allow it on Wednsday, but only if the moon is new.

        KFG
        • Then, change the course, I'm sure DoD has plenty of space somewhere in the country.
          • Ah, but if they had their own facilities for this wouldn't they have been using them in the first place?

            This is a public event sponsored by the military. Not a military event. You can't simply have all these civs just wandering around White Sands chasing their four ton toy cars across the missle range.

            That's only fun until someone loses their structural integrity.

            KFG
            • > This is a public event sponsored by the military. Not a military event. You can't simply have all these civs just wandering around White Sands chasing their four ton toy cars across the missle range.
              >
              > That's only fun until someone loses their structural integrity.

              ...then it's not only hilarious, it's a mission kill!

              • ...then it's not only hilarious, it's a mission kill!

                That's the part mama never understood when she gave us that "loses an eye" lecture.

                KFG
        • I suspect either this or environmental regulations would be the problem. You can't drive LA to Vegas completely off road. You'd have to cross public highways (some of them very busy) at some point which is where the local authorities come in. Those places would likely be designated waypoints. Environmental red tape is the other factor. The Barstow to Vegas desert race was last run in 1989, and since then even more of the desert has been closed to off road vehicles. They might only have approval for 20 vehic
    • How would you keep the teams on future days from learning what the exact course is? The course waypoints are released just hours before the race starts. They could have different courses for each day, but that would probably take significant extra effort. Teams would also be able to analyze the results of previous runs by other teams, and perhaps find weaknesses in their plan that they could fix in time.

      All in all this is not bad for DARPA, but it is unfair to the teams that go first. Even if they do pic

    • OK, the above have some valid points. Run the 5 qualifying heats on some other course, with representative terrain, etc.

      To even the playing field towards economics, award a small amount of bonus points for certain budget limits.
    • As I understand it, it's a race across the desert. Is the desert really that small that they can only fit 20 cars on it?!

      Really, they must just mean that they can't be buggered to organise 100 teams.

      J.

  • Just roll a D100 and see who wins.
    • Before I re-read the subject line, I read it as:

      Just roll a D-100 and see who wins.

      I'm picturing adding AI controls to my D-100 pickup, which I already refer to as Franken-Truck (since it's built out of parts from at least three other trucks and one car); and, letting it rip!

  • The answer is obvious (Score:5, Funny)

    by nizo ( 81281 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @05:32PM (#7381145) Homepage Journal
    More than 100 teams have applied to enter a robotic-car contest sponsored by the research wing of the Defense Department...

    They need to have a pre-contest, something akin to Robot Wars. I mean, it is the Defense Department after all.

  • Pony up, DARPA (Score:2, Insightful)

    by nanojath ( 265940 )
    " What should DARPA do to sort out these problems?"


    Oh for heaven's sake, they're the Defense department, fercryinoutloud. Just run more races. They should make it a yearlong tournament. You know they could sell it to cable.

    • Or how about a regionals and thereby reducing the overhead of participating for smaller less well financed teams? And then they could have the

      Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!
      The D a r p a SuperBowl of Autonomous Vehicle Racing... Hot Smart Vehicles Hot Bikini Clad Woman Cold Beer
      Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!
    • You're forgetting that this is the government that we're talking about. It's slow to change or react even when it comes to something like this. There must be committees and subcommittees to investigate everything. Contracts and rules must be strictly adhered to (usually.) This is what I think is the most likely scenario that is being played out here:

      A program proposal was written up to get funding approval, and they projected a maximum of 20 groups showing interest. Based on that forecast, they set up
  • The bottom line of the whole thing is that people have invested time and money in the research and development behind their vehicles. What DARPA should do is run the course multiple times with the max # of participants, or an even division of participants, but run all of the contestant vehicles through, and time/rate them on their traversal of the course. Then pick the X top competitors and run them all through again to pick a winner. Or something. But you can't honestly expect people, who, on the word of DARPA, undertook to research and build something as difficult and complex as an autonomous vehicle, to just walk away because DARPA didn't consider limiting the number of entries before they announced the contest. Adapt the competition to suit the response..... and you'll be certain you didn't throw the best idea out arbitratily to cut down the field.
  • A preliminary event with the best twenty moving on to the final race. This model works pretty well for most sports, I don't see why it wouldn't fit an autonomous robot race.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @05:35PM (#7381179)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • This is a great oppurtunity for car manufacturers like honda, toyota, gm(especially) etc to get on in this act.

      They already sponsor stuff like Future Truck etc.
      Think about it. Toyota unveiled the self parking system in the new hybrid Prius. I bet it must have cost more than a million to develop it.
      If car makers take over the sponsorship, they could get a butt load of expertise for peanuts.
      But Im guessing is that many big companies ( Carnegie Mellon's team has a budget of 20 million) are helping out because
      • Riiigght.

        Most of these companies already have their own research labs and fund people to work in this area in actual colleges with actual labs.

        Think about it. They know how much this stuff costs.

        A million is peanuts compared to what it costs for development. Its worth much more to be the first to market with the new technologies. Most of these companies are doing it because they don't really control how the research is done, or what is done with it. The colleges do, and because it gets them nice publ
    • Doesn't Wisconsin have senators?

      Get the politicians involved - that's what they are for, in the land of pork-barrel politics.

    • I don't know a whole lot about autonomous vehicles, but your post got me thinking: why not do the civilian challenge over a smaller but more challenging course?

      I come from an area that's something of a mountain bike mecca lately, and I'm sure there are lots of small communities like mine with extensive and interesting trail networks that could be great tests for autonomous vehicles. And the communities would love it...

      Or are the UAVs not ready for rugged terrain yet?
    • See if you can run your vehicle anyway. Or run it independantly, publishing the results for all (including DARPA) to see. Run it fast. Win.
    • Get your senators and representatives involved. File a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain the criteria they used to disqualify each team that didn't make the cut. As soon as it is apparent that the cuts were arbitrary once a certain number of applicants were accepted, you'll have a factual basis from which to pursue stronger action, like requesting the DOJ or even the GAO to investigate whether DARPA is following the letter of the law.
  • They are cutting over 100 to the top 20ish by visiting each competitor and assessing their designs. Sounds fair to me. How how much it does versus how much it can do should be considered after the competition. If they can't winnow it down to 20ish (that would be GOOD news!!), then run 20 per day until done and then invite the best N back for Round 2 at a future data. Of course there is not an unlimited budget for this so some cuts have to be made.

    • I agree with running multiple heats or something similar. That's the only fair way I can see for the entrants.

      Just taking 20-40 of the entrants sucks. You follow the rules, come up with a design that costs a million dollars, then they say "sorry, you're not the cheapest - bye bye"...

      It is the US Dept of Defence right? I'm sure they can scrape together a few thousand dollars from this years $500 billion somewhere...

      • Pick the successful ones, not the cheap ones (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Thuktun ( 221615 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @06:15PM (#7381539) Journal
        Just taking 20-40 of the entrants sucks. You follow the rules, come up with a design that costs a million dollars, then they say "sorry, you're not the cheapest - bye bye"...

        That's the wrong way to do it, anyway. You pick the winner(s) out of the best ones to do it successfully for the lowest cost, not the ones that only have a low up-front cost. If they don't work, you've binned 80% of your other candidates.

        Also, you look for the lowest cost of building the finished unit, not the development costs put up front. Some teams may have had massive amounts of money put into them to guarantee a win, that doesn't imply the finished unit will be expensive to make.
        • Also, there's no real way to tell which ones have lower real costs.

          If you're handing out contracts, you can choose the lower-priced of two equally-good products.

          If the lower-priced isn't truly the lower-cost, you don't care, because it's a contract and MegaCorp has promised to deliver it for $X. If it costs them more than it costs MacroCorp to make the competing product that costs more, you can just assume they have their reasons - maybe they have lower profit margins, or have other products that also be
    • The gripe is that when left to arbitrarily choose, DARPA will fall back on their human instinct for familiarity.

      The race will be amongst the 20 percent of vehicles that seem most like the ones around today. Lame.

      They should lobby some major corps for some small grants to have a preliminary event, and put the winner into the 'big race'

  • Make the starting points scattered (Score:3, Interesting)

    by KiwiEngineer ( 585036 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @05:37PM (#7381202) Journal
    If each team starts at a random (or sensibly positioned) part of the course, and has to navigate to a central point or points the vehicles would need to navigate similar but not identical terrain, and also have to deal with traffic that is coming at it from many directions rather than a convoy type traffic scenario with everyone starting from the same place.

    Alternately, if the weather conditions in this part of the world are stable enough it should be possible to run the course over several weeks. The only problems that occur to me would be that evidence of previous vehicles would mean that the latter teams would have tracks as markers as to where others went. If the area is reasonably windy, or has lots of rain, these could be washed away but that is sheer speculation. Just my $0.02 worth
  • Pardon my use of the appropriate military lingo but this whole thing is a first rate "clusterf**ck".

    It is a "Charlie Foxtrot", for us contractors with sensative ears.

    • Will they do the same lame thing next year?

      If so, it will then also be a clear-cut BOHICA situation...

      BOHICA: Bend Over, Here It Comes Again

      (another military 'from the trenches' acronym)

      OldFart 8-)
    • What did you expect? It's DARPA, for godsakes. They more or less worked on the foundation of the internet and look what a CF that has turned out to be.

  • Why limit? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by macemoneta ( 154740 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @05:38PM (#7381223) Homepage
    They're supposed to be autonomous vehicles, right? If they can't keep out of each others way, they're not very autonomous, are they?
    • But if I spent upwards of $100,000 on my superior autonomous vehicle collision avoidance system, then I should have reasoable assurance that your inferior collision avoidance system will not become self-aware while in the race. Because it could then suddenly realize in a flash of logic that its one true purpose is to ram all other vehicles on the course and declare itself the winner.
  • .. the most likely to actually produce something worthwhile to the rest of us. If there is no benefit to anyone, why bother? That should be glaringly obvious to anyone.

    • DARPA should (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      instead of squandering our tax money on complicated newfangled ways of killing people, DARPA shoud invest the money in ways that mankind can live together in freedom, peace, health and Star Trek like prosperity.

      SILLY ASSES.

    • Hasn't science traditionally meant taking existing work and making some small improvement or addition, then repeating the process for ever and ever?

      Quantum leaps are much better though :). Maybe they should just run a competition for autonomous flying cars with sultry computers asking where you want to go and having a nice conversation about the politics with you?

  • Occam's Razor (Score:5, Funny)

    by dynayellow ( 106690 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @05:43PM (#7381265)
    Well, I think they should evaulate all the projects, the experience of the team members, cost-effectiveness and feasability of the project...

    And then give the contract to Haliburton.

  • How about (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Wireless Joe ( 604314 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @05:46PM (#7381300) Homepage
    Just admitting that they underestimated the interest in this competition, and change it to make the rules harder? I doubt that the current requirements include everything that they would like an autonomous vehicle to accomplish.

  • low price != 'good tech' (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mu*puppy ( 464254 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @05:47PM (#7381301)
    When equating the 'value' of something, especially in earlier phases of development, evaluating a technology on basis of perceived cost is NOT a winning solution.

    I like the "tournament" ideas discussed so far, as DARPA should really test ALL the submissions. Find the best technology now, and further development WILL bring the cost down in the long run. Simply saying 'Oh, but this one is too expensive' has too much potential to eliminate superior technology.

  • Contest strategy (Score:5, Funny)

    by PD ( 9577 ) * <slashdotlinux@pdrap.org> on Monday November 03, 2003 @05:48PM (#7381312) Homepage Journal
    If I were a contestant, I'd go above and beyond the call of duty to win the contest. The rules of the competition say that the vehicles need to navigate a 250 mile long course without human steering. I'd say that all the other contestants are going to try to do just that, with various degrees of success.

    But, I am gifted with the ability to see the forest for the trees. The people who are running the contest are with the Defense Department. Among other things, that department is responsible for prosecuting wars. And wars are just formal and legal ways to kill lots of people.

    So, my strategy, in line with seeing the forest for the trees, would be to read between the lines. The rules talk about navigating a course, but why do they want to do that? TO KILL PEOPLE. The larger goal here is not to just navigate a course, but to win a war by killing lots of people.

    My hypothetical entry would be a very large limousine, with a fully stocked bar, lots of hookers, a disco ball, and a bomb in the trunk. Everyone would take a look at my entry, and say "I gotta take a ride in that thing." The limousine would be very large, and could hold hundreds of people. When they are all inside, the autonomous function would take over. The contest does specify "autonomous" so the car would know what to do automatically. It would blow up, killing a lot of people, and hopefully anyone close by too.

    With that kind of performance, I am quite sure that DARPA would be very impressed with my entry, and I would win.
    • Actually they are looking for an autonomous vehicle for delivering supplies to kill people. So its gotta be able to take the bomb from point A to point B to prove its worth.
  • While Cheapness is important, I dont think that should be a limit, since it can create a lot of discussion and manipulation of the cost.

    The best is if they try to take in as many contestants as possible.

    If they want to use an economical limit to reduce the number of contestants they should decide a maxcost or something such.

  • heat races (Score:5, Insightful)

    by avandesande ( 143899 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @05:56PM (#7381380) Journal
    I am sure that a few short heat races would weed out 95% of the competitors.

  • Just what we need (Score:5, Funny)

    by burgburgburg ( 574866 ) <splisken06@@@email...com> on Monday November 03, 2003 @05:56PM (#7381386)
    Autonomous vehicles roaming the countryside, tracking down the stray humans who haven't been corraled into the pod camps so our bodies can be used as batteries. Like we haven't seen THAT before.

  • self-serving article (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PapaZit ( 33585 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @05:57PM (#7381395)
    Hmm. An editorial in an amateur robotics site recommends using the cheapest projects. Who'll have the cheapest projects? Why, the amateurs who don't have to pay for (or, at least, account for) labor, project space, etc., of course!

    DARPA is looking for people to push the envelope on autonomous vehicle research. However, this is also a very political project that involves a lot of cross-department cooperation. They don't want to have to talk to the press about how an out-of-control "giant robot" crashed into the home of the last colony of purple spotted pigmy desert lizards and exploded. That means, effectively, that talented amateurs with a go-cart and a spare PC are not welcome. They want people who either have a track record or who seem to really be on top of things. As a result, I fully expect them to reject most of the last-minute entrants, small teams, or teams with known problems (like "it don't work yet").

  • Cost of increasing contest potential rewards (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @06:05PM (#7381460)

    Seems to me like the costs involved in simply extending the contest by a day or two(or 5) to run longer, as well as conduct any trail repairs and such, are minimal compared to the potential rewards from much more competition.

    However, I suspect that the "big boy" defense contractors will get first pickings even if they have shit for entries, and if the armed services -really- want to stack the deck, they'll pick the independent teams they think have the least chance to fill out the other 15 or so slots.

    If you don't believe me, just look at some of the wonderful moves the armed services have made in the past when things were supposed to be open to fair bidding etc. Or, look at the current bids for Iraq stuff- one does wonder what sort of commission Cheney gets these days- oh wait, that would be his Haliburton retirement account...

  • not "LOWEST"! (Score:4, Funny)

    by magarity ( 164372 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @06:17PM (#7381565)
    DARPA should have to chose the 20 cheapest financed teams.

    Whoa there, this is government. The 20 most expensive to make should be in the final competition.
  • In the California-Nevada desert, come see 100 autonomous vehicles fight it out across the desert in this all-out Battle Royale. 20 teams of 5 will be pitted against each other in this fight-to-the-death tournament across the desert. Anything goes as these cars try to block, trample and DDos each other to the finish line...

  • Autonomous Vehicle Dealership (Score:4, Funny)

    by nrlightfoot ( 607666 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @06:18PM (#7381573) Homepage
    In other news, I expect to open an autonomous vehicle dearlership soon. initial inventory is expected at about 80 vehicles.

  • The fix is in (Score:5, Funny)

    by Teahouse ( 267087 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @06:35PM (#7381799)
    Reading between the lines of DARPA's letter...

    "
    Dear Mr. Insignificant

    Thank you for participating, but since this dog and pony show was really only designed to allow the top 20 big contractors (like Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed, Rockwell, Northrop, GE, GM, Ford, et al) get a chance at a lucrative contract, we must now admit that you don't have a chance in hell. As a matter of fact, we are so nervous that one of the other 80 participants may actually produce a better, more innovative vehicle, we are going to disqualify you all before you even get a chance. Sure, in the spirit of looking fair, we will come visit your site and see your vehicle. Don't get your hopes up. Do you really think we are going to give the vehicle you and your unemployed ex-aerospace friends built in a garage the same chance we are going to give the Boeing entry we get to see at a 40,000 sq ft plant with a clean room and a reception area filled with gnosh for us to eat? Hell, Lockheed is even providing champagne and a mariachi band! Thank you for playing, now go home and let the big boys play with their billion dollar contracts.

    Sincerely,

    DARPA (i.e. The Federal Appropriations Enabler)"

    Who needs innovation when you can get free food and a goodie bag?

    • Re:The fix is in (Score:4, Informative)

      by Animats ( 122034 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @08:28PM (#7382860) Homepage
      None of the big guys entered. There's no Ford, no GM, no General Dynamics, no Boeing. Even the middle-tier firms, like FMC and AM General, are absent.

      Even the CMU team is CMU's second string. The Robotics Institute decided to pass on the Grand Challenge. The group entering is from the Field Robotics Center, which is Red Whittaker's old teleoperator-building operation. They're not the autonomous robot people from CMU. They didn't raise the $5 million they said they were going to raise, either. Basically, the CMU people are hanging an Applanix GPS/INS system and a Reigl laser rangefinder on an old HUMMV, which is reasonable enough. Their main advantage is a big body count - they claim to have over 40 undergrads working on the thing.

      The Caltech entry is really a bunch of undergrads with a '95 Chevy Blazer and an adviser from JPL. They're very dependent on cameras, probably too dependent given the state of the art in that area.

      Nobody that I know of is doing this with all full-time paid staff.


  • Make all 100 fight to the death. The top twenty survivors get to run the race. After all, we only want to send the best 20 -- let's find out which are really fit to survive in a hostile environment.

    "To the victor go the spoils" -- a basic premise of evolutionary development.

    And don't just select the cheapest twenty -- consider that survivability might outweigh cost, on a Mars mission.

    Actually, the really interesting aspect will be analyzing the failure of those that make the top twenty but don'
  • they don't have an old military airfield that can handle 200 teams???
  • One of the acknowledged favorites is Red Team Robot Racing out of Carnegie Mellon University. William "Red" Whittaker, the Fredkin Professor of Robotics there, is overseeing the project. Whittaker devised robots that helped clean up the accident at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island power plant. The team's budget is said to exceed $1 million. While CMU is building a vehicle from an old Humvee,

    Well hell, I could do that, and for alot less then $1 mill too! 20lb weight on the gas pedal, point it towards the f

  • There really aren't that many teams with a clue (Score:3, Informative)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Monday November 03, 2003 @08:02PM (#7382629) Homepage
    Anybody who had their technical paper rejected either didn't try very hard or didn't have a clue. DARPA gave teams over six months to get their technical paper approved. DARPA returned detailed comments on each submission within two weeks. Each DARPA commentary consisted of a form with specific items listed as "approved", "rejected", or "need more info". Fixing rejected papers was straightforward. It took us three tries; nothing was rejected, but DARPA had detailed questions ("What is the frequency and power for the phased-array radar?" and "How does the field-based planning algorithm get out of local minima?" were two.) The questions were reasonable, if sometimes a bit nit-picky. Any team that could write a plausible description of what they proposed to do, whether they could do it or not, could get past the technical paper hurdle. DARPA approved about 45 technical papers of the eighty-some submitted.

    The next big gripe is about the "DARPA site visit". DARPA plans to send some people out to visit each team in December and check on their progress. A few people are complaining loudly about this, but anybody with something to show shouldn't have a problem with it. It's basically a vaporware filter.

    Finally, DARPA has decided to use the preliminary testing at the California Motor Speedway in Fontana to cut the number of entries down to 20. I will be surprised if twenty teams field something that crosses the starting line in Fontana, let alone finishes the trial course.

    I don't see a problem here.

    John Nagle
    Team Overbot [overbot.com]

    (Incidentally, while we have most of the people we need, we could use an additional electronics tech and a QNX sysadmin. "No pay, some risk, a fraction of the prize.")

  • Not an issue (Score:4, Informative)

    by SiliconEntity ( 448450 ) * on Monday November 03, 2003 @08:02PM (#7382634)
    This competition [darpa.mil] is incredibly difficult. Travellling 250 miles in 10 hours over desert terrain, on a course which in some places is intentionally too narrow for GPS navigation, is almost certainly beyond the limits of current robotic technology. Because of the slow speeds necessary on portions of the course, the robot must drive at over 60 MPH much of the time! It will undoubtedly be several years before any team passes the test (unless they loosen the rules).

    Although there are 100+ teams registered (see the team list here [darpa.mil]), that doesn't mean much. There was no entry fee to apply! At this point all the teams have to have done is supply a technical paper with their ideas for how their robot could work. There's a huge difference between doing that and actually producing a multi hundred thousand dollar vehicle.

    Undoubtedly, only a small fraction of these teams will have the budgets and resources to show up with a vehicle on March 13. I doubt there will be more than 10. And none of them will meet the standards necessary to win the contest. But most of them will be back next year, with a few new entrants, and after enough years of experience they will hopefully succeed.

    But for now, this is all a mountain in a molehill. People are making a tempest out of a teapot. DARPA simply failed to explicitly include a phase to weed out those contestants who won't have a vehicle. Now they are fixing that. I doubt very much that the numbers will be an issue at all.
    • I have to disagree. For under $5-10k I could mod a vehicle that would be able to finish the course. In fact, a few my friends at work and I are have been toying with this very idea. I haven't thought a lot about off road for a contest like this, but it wouldn't be that much more difficult.

      Use 3-5 processors hooked into GPS, 360 degrees of camera coverage, maybe some IR camera's for night and a maybe a low powered sonar or laser system for distance detection. Map software onboard goes without saying.

      Ea
  • "What should DARPA do to sort out these problems?"

    Well, considering what the D in DARPA stands for, the solution is obvious: Ask Congress for more money, claiming that the race is vital for national security. Duh!
  • You could have 100 prelims where people run a 20-50 mile course and take the top 20 teams and have them run the whole 250 mile course. That way, you give every team a fair chance. If you can't make it through 50 miles faster/better than the others, how do they hope to make it through 250. In addition, they could choose to run the 250 mile course the next day, so as not to give additional unfair advantages to the better funded teams, who could rework/weak their cars between races. Have the cars impounded
  • Just run the race in the new Iraq Territory. Bonus for any vehicle that finishes.
  • So we got 16 real teams and 80 people who signed up just to have another item on their resume. Gross.

  • I doubt all 100 are totally up to the required quality. Why not just have a much shorter but fairly difficult qualifying race. That would remove the 'almost ready' contenders from those with a real chance.

  • F1 had a similar problem (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@ y a hoo.com> on Tuesday November 04, 2003 @12:37AM (#7384088) Homepage Journal
    Too many cars, too small a number of spaces on the starting grid. Their solution was to have, in addition to regular qualifying, a round of pre-qualifying.


    The system was simple. In pre-qualifying, competitors had to exceed some pre-set minimum standard. If you didn't make it, you didn't get into the regular qualifying session. The reason for calling it pre-qualifying is that, for the bulk of the season, it only applied to the slowest N driver/team pairs.


    Qualifying then required all surviving competitors to get within N seconds of the fastest car. Anyone slower was disqualified.


    Similar standards are used in the Olympics, where there are minimum standards set to even be able to get there, and (as there are more countries than track space) you then have to meet additional standards to actually start.


    It seems that this would be the way for DARPA to go. Now, space and marshalling will place certain limits on how they can do this. You can't do your routine pre-qualifying, if there's nobody you can have marshalling the event, and nowhere to hold it.


    Static testing would therefore seem a viable alternative. Put up a prefab shop, where you can statically test the autonomous vehicles. If certain standards aren't met, the vehicle is DNQed. Yeah, it's rough, as this wasn't the original spec, but they've gotta do something and this would work better than drawing lots.


    Now, you're still likely to have more than 20 meet the minimum, unless the minimum is so high that you risk eliminating too many. The answer here would seem to be to have some kind of short sprint area. That shouldn't be too bad, now the numbers are down. First 20 across the line are the entrants.


    Again, this is rough, but DARPA are badly outnumbered and they don't have a choice but to cut the numbers somehow. The only fair way is to have "mini contests" that are sufficiently limited in space/time that they can manage it with the resources they have.


    And, again, competitors may bitch about being DNQed with the above, because it wasn't the original contest, but they'd bitch a hell of a lot more (and with far greater cause) if it came down to drawing straws.

  • Is this going to be broadcasted on the Discovery channel? I hope every team as cameras all over this thing.

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