Vehicles vie for $1 million
Dan Romanchik, Technical Editor -- Test & Measurement World, 2/1/2004
Shortly after sunrise on March 13, 2004, 25 vehicles will leave Las Vegas and head toward Los Angeles. The owner of the first vehicle to arrive will win $1 million.
How can this be? Thousands of cars make that journey every day. The catch here is that none of these vehicles will have a human driver. They are all taking part in the DARPA Grand Challenge, an event designed to test the state of the art of autonomous ground vehicle technology.
By sponsoring the Challenge, the Department of Defense (DOD) hopes to draw attention to autonomous vehicle technology and generate breakthroughs in performance. The DOD views unmanned vehicle technology as a critical element of future military capabilities, and it designed the Grand Challenge in a format that encourages small companies and entrepreneurs to participate.
The Challenge route will include a variety of terrain between Los Angeles and Las Vegas and will not exceed 300 miles. The precise course will not be released to the teams until two hours prior to the start of the event. The route will have a series of waypoints and boundaries that define a corridor within which the vehicles must remain. The corridor width will vary from miles to tens of feet, and will guide the vehicles across open terrain, winding trails, and paved roads. For safety, the route will be clear of non-Challenge traffic.
Challenge vehicles must autonomously negotiate the challenge course without human interface or control of any kind. The vehicles must perform general route selection and navigation to follow the Challenge route. Vehicles must sense their environment to perceive terrain features, ground conditions, obstacles, and other Challenge vehicles. They must intelligently control their speed and direction so as to avoid or accommodate all of the above. They must also do these things quickly—overall speed will be the deciding factor and the time limit of 10 hours is designed to push vehicle speeds far beyond current technologies.
Once the participants activate their Challenge vehicles on the starting line, DARPA will take responsibility for them. Using a comprehensive administrative network, including field judges and electronic systems, DARPA will monitor and ensure that the Challenge vehicles are operating safely and are on the route.
The Challenge is open to any non-government US person or entity. Applicants had to submit a detailed technical paper describing the autonomous vehicle they planned to enter by October 14, 2003. DARPA then reviewed the papers, taking into account the technology the applicants proposed to use, the safety of the proposed design, and compliance to the Challenge rules.
In all, DARPA received 106 applications and approved 25. As expected, the challenge attracted many small companies, some specifically formed to take part in this event. DARPA also received applications from educational institutions, including Cal Tech and Ohio State.
Perhaps the most unexpected application came from the Palos Verdes (CA) RoadWarriors. This team consists entirely of high school students, who, according to the team's Web site, "...have extensive computing experience, and include experienced C/C++ programmers." Science teacher Graham Robertson is the team's chief advisor, and a collection of advisors, mentors, and parents are also involved. UCLA, USC, JPL, and NASA scientists have all volunteered time to review the work as it progresses.
If there is no winner this year, DARPA will run the Grand Challenge for Autonomous Ground Vehicles annually until there is a winner, or until the Congressional authority to award the cash prize expires (currently in 2007). For more information on the Grand Challenge, visit www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge.
