Jalopnik
More than a year ago, DARPA awarded 11 teams $1 million each in seed money for vehicle R&D. Of the 60 applicants, Stanford, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Autonomous Solutions, Virginia Polytechnic, CalTech, Cornell, The Golem Group, Honeywell, Raytheon and OshKosh were the only ones with proposals deemed worthy of the prize. So, what's a million dollars get ya these days? Anything from a mostly stock Toyota Highlander Hybrid to a gigantanormous robotic monster truck that belches Terminator sounds when in autonomous mode. Every team has a unique approach, and while similar hardware shows up on many of the vehicles, nobody seems to have the exact combination to match anyone else. Case in point. Last year's winner thinks it can get the job done without any optical cameras; Autonomous Solutions figures Windows XP is up to the task of commanding an SUV. Things are bound to get interesting on the A Track, and we're not even to the privately funded B Track entrants. [DARPA Grand Challenge]
DARPA Grand Challenge: Million-Dollar Babies
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12:00 PM on Sun Oct 28 2007
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Well, for once I can say my tax dollars are going for something kewl.
The DARPA grand challenge is exactly in the spirit of what DARPA is for, and it's doubly better because the project is a competition between private groups organized by DARPA. If there was a contract to develop an autonomous vehicle given out to Lockeed or Raytheon or somesuch, it'd cost somewhere between 10 and 50 times as much, and probably give worse results.
go Stanley!
Mmmm...
Man, i want to get in on some of this...
@elwood: Precicely what's wrong with our military spending today.
This reminds me a little of my childhood experience with Olympics of the Mind, only they couldn't possibly have paid for their projects by selling beef jerky and stationery... We could have done better than 3rd place at Nationals with seed money like that :)
@Turboner: Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that this is fuggin' cool. Thanks, Jalopnik, for covering something that isn't another boring crossover. I kid, I kid...
I don't want cars to drive themselves. That's what I like to do. There's enough idiots out there driving already; we don't need more powered by Windows. Long live the Luddites.
Having gotten my BSEE degree at Caltech in '85 and worked as a DoD circuit designer for over a decade, during the dying gasps of the cold-war rigidity, DARPA is doing this correctly in the post-MIL-SPEC this and MIL-HDBK that world. A tax dollar goes SO much further using this approach. Of course at present I prefer to drive my own car, but who's to say someday we couldn't settle in with a good book as our robotic wheels chauffeur us to Vegas or Grandma's or wherever.
...Oh, I forgot my Windows XP joke about having to reboot the car when stuck on the side of the road (my '97 MBZ E320 has actually forced me to do exactly that on a few occasions!)
Cool, a 4WD Econoline...
Build that with a 6 spd manual, Ford
Windows can do a better job driving than some people in the Bay Area.
And, Googles totally gonna unleash that thing to complete "Streetview"
If you've got kids who think they want to grow up to be long haul truck drivers...encourage them to be robotic-truck-IT-technologists instead.
This technology will be on world expressways, moving trailer-trains between regional terminals, within 15 years. Maybe even 10. This is the last generation of long haul truckers. Country music is gonna be hurtin'.
Hope CalTech's outing goes better than last time:
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I love that van...
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