{"51956":{"#nid":"51956","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Assistant Professor Quoted in AJC Story about DARPA Grand Challenge","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003EIt\u0027s a road race with no drivers, just cars. It\u0027s a Mad Max dash across the California desert, but no Max.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe Pentagon\u0027s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the technological godfather of things stealth, smart bullets and the Internet, is sponsoring a road race this week --- with one overriding entry requirement.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EOnly robots need apply.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe race, called the DARPA Grand Challenge, begins Saturday at dawn at the Slash X Ranch near Barstow, Calif. The still-secret course is guaranteed to be a grueling grind over 200 miles of blue highways, back roads, trails and open desert from Barstow to the Nevada state line.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ETwenty-five robots with assorted pedigrees --- modified Humvees, souped-up sport utility vehicles, dune buggies, all-terrain vehicles, a six-wheeled military truck and a motorcycle --- will vie for a congressionally authorized prize of $1 million.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe winner also gets bragging rights to one of the most daunting challenges robots have ever faced: that distinctly human, infinitely complex activity we call driving.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWith or without a winner, the Defense Department\u0027s top research agency believes the interest generated by the race will stimulate some grassroots innovations that might be useful in future military robots. Under a congressional mandate to make a third of the country\u0027s military vehicles autonomous by 2015, DARPA has already funded dozens of research projects to develop machines that can replace human soldiers.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ENew ideas wanted\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EBut they\u0027re still looking for a few good machines --- and the race is intended to draw out fresh approaches to robotics from universities and entrepreneurial companies that might never think about applying for million-dollar defense contracts.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ERobotic contests aren\u0027t really new. There are hundreds every year --- robo-soccer championships, robotic egg hunts, robotic firefighting competitions, cleaning robot contests, even robotic sumo matches.Robots do a lot of serious work these days, too. They assemble automobiles, solder circuit boards, sweep floors, answer telephones, and even assist doctors in surgery. At the moment, roving robots are trundling across hostile terrain 100 million miles from Earth --- revealing details of a Martian landscape that no human has ever set foot on.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ESo far, however, robots haven\u0027t done much driving, and for good reason: They\u0027re not very good at it.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EA robotic van \u0022drove\u0022 from Pittsburgh to San Diego in 1995, but there was a human in the driver\u0027s seat, just in case. The van-bot did fine on interstate highways, but it never mastered the exit ramps and intersections. Robotics enthusiasts counter that 43,000 traffic fatalities a year prove humans aren\u0027t great drivers, either.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EBut Saturday\u0027s race is a sign of the changing times. These drivers are also the driven. For 200 miles, the entrants will be guided entirely by satellite navigation systems, racing through thousands of interim waypoints --- precise points of longitude and latitude --- to the finish line.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EComputers and sensors aboard the vehicles will be entirely responsible for the steering, turning, braking and accelerating as they cross the desert.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe final course --- chosen from more than 1,200 miles of possible routes --- won\u0027t be disclosed to participants until two hours before the race.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe vehicles, including the University of Alaska\u0027s Arctic Tortoise, Louisiana State University\u0027s CajunBot and Virginia Tech\u0027s club car Cliff, will have 10 hours to cover the course.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EDefense officials are promising that: \u0022The route will include surfaced and unsurfaced roads, trails, and off-road areas. Manmade and natural obstacles --- both above and below the surface of the average terrain --- are likely. Examples of obstacles include ditches, washboard, open water, rocks, underpasses, construction, power line towers, barbed wire fences and other vehicles.\u0022\u003Cbr \/\u003E Opinions among robotics experts vary about whether the race should be known as the grand challenge or the impossible dream.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022You\u0027re talking about a course over very rough roads and open desert,\u0022 says Frank Dellaert, co-director of Georgia Tech\u0027s robotics lab, which is not participating in the race. \u0022I would have trouble driving some of these roads myself. I think it\u0027s beyond the capabilities of autonomous vehicles today.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EOne robotics team has already reinforced those sentiments. Team Overbot, made up of former Stanford University engineering students and Silicon Valley volunteers, dropped out of the race last month, announcing that they were \u0022not able to deliver a safe autonomous vehicle in time.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EInterest running high\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EMark Maimone of NASA\u0027s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will watch the competition with special interest. He\u0027s well aware of the potential pitfalls. He wrote the software now being used by NASA\u0027s Mars rovers.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022It is a huge challenge to operate the rovers on Mars, but this is a lot different,\u0022 Maimone says. \u0022It takes the Mars rovers a minute and a half to scan what\u0027s ahead and make a decision. At the speeds these vehicles will be traveling, they are going to have to do that 20 times a second.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022The real challenge is to pull all of the sensing and control systems together and make them respond quickly,\u0022 he says. \u0022Robots don\u0027t do well with changing situations. The real world is very confusing to them.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EA more confident Chuck Thorpe, director of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, says, \u0022It\u0027s all going to depend on the course. Cliffs and ravines aren\u0027t the problem, but if there are nasty, tricky obstacles like water-filled holes you can\u0027t see the bottom of, or fence poles hidden behind a yucca plant, it may be no one will make it.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIf any entrant does, Thorpe and other experts agree that it will very likely be Team Red, headed by his CMU colleague William \u0022Red\u0022 Whittaker, who heads the school\u0027s field robotics laboratory and has 30 years of experience designing robotic vehicles.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWhittaker and more than 50 students have spent the last year building and testing Sandstorm, a 1986 Humvee that --- with $3.5 million in refinements --- reportedly does a pretty good job of driving itself.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EUnlike other teams, Whittaker\u0027s has spent months building detailed maps of the possible race routes across the Mojave Desert. No matter how well a robot drives, it won\u0027t get where it\u0027s going if it doesn\u0027t know where it is --- just like a human driver.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe \u0022computer farm\u0022 that serves as Sandstorm\u0027s road map holds 16 terabytes of data, enough to fill 100 hard drives on a desktop computer.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAnother team, the Palos Verdes Road Warriors, may not bring as much robotic experience to the competition, but its members make up for it with youthful optimism.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe 40 gifted high school students, who each get five hours of research credit, are modifying a 2003 Acura SUV to enable it to drive itself, something many of them are still too young to do.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EUnder the tutelage of science teacher Graham Robertson, the Palos Verdes students have received donations of a new Acura SUV --- renamed Doom Buggy --- and $40,000 worth of electronic gear. From time to time, they also get a little friendly advice from engineers at nearby institutions like Cal Tech, the University of South California, NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EEven DARPA has doubts about whether driverless vehicles will be able to conquer the California outback. If no one wins, the race will be run again next year. And the year after that.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022It\u0027s hard to say who came up with the precise idea for this Grand Challenge,\u0022 recalls DARPA Director Anthony Tether. \u0022We were having a bull session. In the military that\u0027s a bunch of generals sitting around a table.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022We were all thinking about, God, you know, these unmanned vehicles really are the way to go. But how are we going to energize people, how are we going to get people out of the garages?\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ERacers, venue changed\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EOnce the race was announced, energizing people was definitely not a problem: More than 100 robotics teams applied. Realizing that 100 robots racing across Southern California might be hard to manage, the agency cut the field to 25.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAlso changed was the venue, originally billed from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. The idea of a pack of driverless vehicles roaring down Los Angeles freeways was deemed too ambitious for the current state of robotics technology.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EEven with the empty quarter of the Mojave Desert between Barstow and the current finish line at Primm, Nev., DARPA is being careful. Judges will shadow each robot to make sure they don\u0027t run amok, or try to run each other off the road. Race rules require the robots to give the right-of-way to other vehicles.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAccidents, of course, are not always avoidable.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022They have insurance, just in case,\u0022 says race spokesman Don Shipley, \u0022They have taken out a lot of insurance.\u0022\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAnd some fear that, at speeds that might reach 50 mph, the robots also pose a threat to the desert tortoise --- a federally threatened species and the official state reptile of California. Sluggish after a winter of hibernation, the tortoises usually emerge from their burrows this time of year.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EUnder orders from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, teams of biologists will sweep the race corridor before the competition, moving any tortoises out of harm\u0027s way and fencing their burrows until the robots pass.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe tortoises, which have resided in the Mojave for 60 million years and, as individuals, often live to be 100, probably won\u0027t pay much mind.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EOff-roading is common in this part of the desert. And from inside a tortoise shell at ground level, it\u0027s pretty hard to tell whether someone\u0027s behind the wheel or not.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EHOW THEY NAVIGATE\u003Cbr \/\u003E Each vehicle travels the course through a series of waypoints. Each waypoint has a different circumference in which vehicles must enter before advancing to the next waypoint. If a vehicle goes outside the boundaries, DARPA can remotely shut off the vehicle.\u003Cbr \/\u003E Map shows course from START: Barstow to FINISH: Primm, Nev.\u003Cbr \/\u003E Shading indicates land elevations from sea level and below to 12,000+ ft.\u003Cbr \/\u003E Diagram of waypoints shows course line and areas where teams must enter.\u003Cbr \/\u003E Each waypoint determines vehicle speed. If a vehicle travels faster than the recommended speed, it will be disqualified.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"Sensors and satellites responsible for guiding cars 200 miles through the desert.\u003Cbr \/\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27154","created_gmt":"2010-02-09 21:53:07","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:05:29","author":"Louise Russo","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2004-03-08T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2004-03-08T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}