Write your abstract here.
Autonomous Cars & the DARPA Grand Challenge.
If you''ve read or watched
any decent Science Fiction, then no doubt
you will have been introduced to the
autonomous car. One of the more
recent and spectacular displays was from the failed movie I, Robot,
where Will Smith was casually driven in to a trap by his autonomous
car. Or at least, I''m fairly certain that was what was implied.However, for those who like to live a little more in the world of
reality, the DARPA Grand Challenge is bringing us that little bit
closer to
killer
cars
. OK, well, maybe its more like theyre bringing us closer to cars that
we need not drive ourselves, but one can never be too careful. $3.5 million, 10 miles of track, and no drivers. Thats the underlying
statistics behind the Grand Challenge, the brainchild of the US Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency. 11 cars set out on Saturday to tackle the course, located at the former
George Air Force Base. But they werent just out there alone; they were
facing other robots, traffic conditions, normal lights and pedestrians.
Its all good and well having a car that drives itself, but it all
falls off the rails if it crashes in to a pram. "This is truly the first time we''ve taken robots and watched them
interact with other robots," said Norman Whitaker, DARPA Urban
Challenge program manager. "They have not interacted so far." Within six hours, there were several tasks to be completed by the
robots. Two hours in to the test, three teams had fallen out of the
race. Team Oshkosh, Team Annieway, and
Intelligent Vehicle Systems were
all eliminated, all for varying reasons. Team Oshkosh, a more than 24,000 pound Oshkosh truck nearly ran itself
in to an old abandoned shopping center. Team Intelligent didn''t seem
too intelligent when it found itself confronted with a stop sign. Though the official announcement won''t be given until after the
writing of this article, the organizers were more than happy to
announce that the Stanford VW Passat taking first place above Virginia
Tech''s modified Ford Escape Hybrid, and Carnegie Mellon''s autonomous
Chevrolet Tahoe. The winners weren''t just the first across the line though, with
precision and performance while driving key factors to who would walk
away with the first prize. The real winner, at least in terms of the outcome, will be the American
Defense Force. One of the key motivators for the US military is the
hope to minimize the casualties from roadside bombs. Hundreds have been
killed in the Iraqi war since 2003 thanks to roadside bombs and IEDs,
it doesn''t come as any surprise then that this is such an important
outcome. Galaxy News Reported November 5th, 2007.