DARPA Grand Challenge Finalists Announced

Xerotope writes "DARPA announced today the 23 finalists[pdf warning] of the DARPA Grand Challenge at the closing ceremonies of the National Qualifying Event. Carnegie Mellon University's Red Team will start on Saturday with the first and third positions, with 'H1ghlander' taking the pole position and 'Sandstorm' following 10 minutes later. Stanford's 'Stanley' will start second. Of the 43 semi-finalists, 23 robots managed to finish the 2.2 mile course at least once. 5 robots (Stanford, Red Team, Red Team Too, Axion Racing, and Team Teramax) completed all of their runs. CMU's 'H1ghlander' and 'Sandstorm' finished the four runs with an average time of 10 minutes, 20 seconds each. Stanford's Stanley average time was 10:43."

Re:Ghost Rider

[MatD]

While I had hoped that it would make it, those hopes weren't very high. Using a two wheeeled vehicle instead of a four wheel vehicle just adds needless compilications to the whole thing. A four (or three) wheeled vehicle can stop where it is while it tries to determine terrain etc. A two wheeled vehicle has to keep moving. If it wants to go backwards, it has to circle around.

Even though they didn't make it, hats off to 'em.

Re:Still too slow

[Krezel]

Speeds in the NQE event were limited by DARPA. They hand us a file containing waypoints, speeds, and track widths that we're limited to. Go too fast or wander outside the gates and they penalize you. The speeds at the NQE event are not representative of what you'll get to see once the robots are in the open desert.

Highlander's record time was only 7 seconds slower than the "course ideal" that you could expect to get if you went exactly the speed limit all the way around. In fact, we were scolded by DARPA for pushing the speed limit to get that time. They didn't think we could do it without speeding.

Re:Terminator or Explorer?

[Zathrus]

because nasty terrorist hands are burned by the righteous grips of the M-16

Yes, because I implied that. Note that I said that you wouldn't want to ship the guns as well.

And yes, you could use the ammo in jury rigged bombs... but there's not much in a casing, or even a clip. It's a horrendously inefficient way to make an explosive. There are household chemicals you can combine to have far more explosive power in far less space.

The stuff you don't want them getting are the bombs, artillary shells, tank shells, etc. -- those have extremely potent chemical explosives that aren't easily manufacturered, but can easily be "repurposed" (often without even bothering to crack the shell).

Yes, those terrorists are so damn stupid they don't realize the value of water, food, and medical supplies.

The medical supplies may very well be needed (especially US military grade ones), but they're generally not in dire need of food or water. Not enough to expend the kind of resources required to stop a convoy. As for cutting the supply lines -- yes, it's basic tactics. It's also utterly ineffective against a modern army in these circumstances. We can easily airlift supplies to the troops if necessary, and supply convoys are so numerous that they simply cannot cut off enough to significantly harm the forces -- not without exposing themselves drastically.

And if only we stopped filling our all our supply transports with people, and only had a couple drivers in each truck, they wouldn't attack any more, because they only care about causalties

Sure they'd attack, but it would be ineffective. And they'd be wasting resources on taking out unmanned vehicles which have very little value -- even monetarily, it'd be cheaper in the long run to use unmanned supply trucks than it would be to up armor and provide security for all of them. Not to mention the enlisted men that you free for other duties. Not to mention the reduced political and resource costs that would come from fewer people dieing.

Here's a quick hint: action movies and the crap shows on Fox and SpikeTV are not neccesarily accurate depictions of warfare.

That's nice. I don't watch either channel.

Re:Terminator or Explorer?

[James.Stanton]

It's not designed for use as a weapons platform (there is no ability to determine threats or potential targets), nor for usage on other planets -- all of the vehicles make use of GPS to some degree (they can operate without, but are handicapped) and we don't exactly have constellations of sats flying around any other stellar bodies.

Not yet anyway: Red Planet Wayfinder: A GPS System for Mars [space.com]. Don't think these guys (meaning the current US administration) aren't going to weaponize everything they can get their hands on.

Re:Still too slow

[Creosote]

Quirky fact, the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) mandates 25 mph or less in desert tortoise areas. You gotta love beauracracy.

Right. Tortoises just don't make a satisfying enough splat when you hit them going under 50 mph.

(If I ran things, that max speed would be more like 5 mph. But then I'm a Joshua tree-hugger.)