Stanford and Volkswagen Create Autonomous Vehicle

nght2000 writes "Stanford University has created an autonomous driving robot to compete in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge Race. The race will be held on October 8, 2005 in the desert Southwest. The team that develops an autonomous ground vehicle that finishes the designated route most quickly within 10 hours will receive $2 million. The route will be no more than 175 miles over desert terrain featuring natural and man-made obstacles. The Stanford Racing Team's vehicle is a Volkswagen R5 turbo diesel Touareg that was donated by Volkswagen of America. The Stanford Team has been working with the Volkswagen Electronics Research Laboratory on the project."

Red Team

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the bona fide leader in this competition the Red Team from Carnegie Mellon?

this specifically won't work

[Anonymous Coward]

The course is specifically designed to defeat the gps+road map method of solving the puzzle.

It is guaranted that the vehicle has to pass through a tunnel or other type of obstruction that disables GPS.

Also, it is guaranteed that all roads will have obsticles at random locations that must be avoided. I understand that there are points where the vehicle must do an obstacle course and avoiding it or jumping over it is banned.

Re:I worked on this project for a few hours

[Anonymous Coward]

No one has come even come close to the finish line on this race, so it would be very significant if a team was able to finish it. In 2004 "The furthest any of the teams had gotten was the Red Team's 7.4 miles" in a 150 mile course. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge [wikipedia.org]

Re:this specifically won't work

[Nefarious Wheel]

GPS isn't the only positioning system in existence -- GPS plus intertial navigation could do it. Inav sums micro changes in direction along a path to give you a resultant vector.

Re:They're a bit optimistic..

[SuprCzr]

Theres a time limit to make sure that no one tries this... i believe you have ten hours from when you start to finish the ~150mi course... you do the math.

Combine with the other car dream

[Wizarth]

One of the advances that would be a lot more likely once this is done is: Flying Cars.

The biggest complaint against flying automobiles is how every-one (and their dog) would be able to drive (fly) like a bat out of hell. Literally, in this case.

So, get autonomous driving working, get people used to it on the ground, then going airborne is just a next step.

Re:YAY!!!

[NanoGator]

"Herbie Rides Again"

I can't believe that Herbie is taking precedence over KITT here. I know it's a VW and all, but yeesh, KITT's got der bliken lights!

Re:Herbie!

[Garabito]

Yes, but they did it again. Fully loaded [go.com] now.

Re:I Cried

[Anonymous Coward]

The winning team was pretty sweet, but I certainly expect a lot more competitive entries this year.

There was no winning team.

You fucking idiot.

Re:this specifically won't work

[john_anderson_ii]

It's true that GPS and "turn here", "turn there" technologies won't work, if that was all it took the U.S. Military could have done it themselves.

I do recall reading in Leatherneck magazine about a project the USN was undertaking involving unmanned subs that were to be used as long range sonar platforms and possibly very long range torpedos.

While operating underwater GPS is useless, but dead reckoning (Speed * Time = distance, distance @ bearing = position relative to start position) is still useful. The subs they were working on used a combination of surfacing for GPS, dead reckoning, and sonar navigation to avoid obstacles to reach their goal. I haven't read Leatherneck since I retired from the USMC, so I don't know what became of this project.

I think the point of this exercise is to use a mix of technolgies to accomplish the task. The most efficient mix, in theory, will win.

Re:What if...

[zero_offset]

I suppose you may have been joking or trolling, but just in case -- there is a remote-kill and all vehicles are continuously monitored by event organizers (e.g. not the team itself, who might take advantage of their proximity to cheat). There are guidelines for things like maximum deviation from pre-planned corridors, etc. (These are quite wide and by design involve a lot of unfriendly terrain -- it wouldn't be possible to do simply exploit the existence of these imaginary corridors as a navigation aid).

Re:this specifically won't work

[dcw3]

It is guaranted that the vehicle has to pass through a tunnel or other type of obstruction that disables GPS.

Guess you're a little behind on GPS-gyros. Here's an example:
http://www.brilliant-electronics.com/car_positioni ng_system_kenwood_knadv4100.htm [brilliant-...ronics.com]

Re:Herbie!

[Anonymous Coward]

This news coincides with the re-make of the Herbie movie.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/disney/herbie_fully_ loaded/ [apple.com]

Re:But how many humans can do the job?

[hcdejong]

Last year's Dakar rally had about 5400 km of 'special stage' (where the cometitors are timed, as opposed to liaison routes that are untimed, and add another ~5600 km to the trip), with the fastest competitors completing those in about 52 hours, ie about 100 km/h.
There are stages where the fastest cars reach about 200 km/h. Other stages took more than 24 hours for some people (average 20 km/h), but most of that would be spent standing still and digging the vehicle out.