Stanford University wins DARPA Grand Challenge race for robots - five complete course

TerraMax is a unique vehicle in the event. It's a specially modified 8 ton military truck. They cut most of the cab off to be able to fit under bridges and underpasses. Then they add 6 wheel steering to improve its ability to fit its 8 foot wide frame onto tight dirt roads. TerraMax had 4 good runs in the NQE, but they had to go slow to keep in the narrow routes used for the testing courses. On a wider route, it will happily go 45mph.

The robot race of the century did not disappoint – after the ignorance of the mass media was displayed so clearly with its mockery of last year’s efforts, the ingenuity of man shone through and massive gains were made in understanding what is required for a vehicle to travel on its own, without any human involvement and decision-making, across 132 miles of desert and thousands of obstacles. Watching the teams on the day before the event was a privilege. Most were sitting calmly, knowing that all the work had been done months ago, and ther robots were as ready as they’d ever be.

Most are doing last minute adjustments. A few were performing major repairs. Many teams have dozens of people that have dedicated the last few months to testing their robots. They have come to respect how tough the desert can be. If they can't win the race, they still want to conquer this hostile terrain and the field was full of immensely capable machines that 12 months ago would all represented the pinnacle of human knowledge in the area. DARPA has done the world an enormous service as the technologies that were developed specifically for this race will filter down into the robots which will populate our homes, assist us to run our lives, and most likely assist us to drive our cars more safely.

Murphy's law (anything that can go wrong, will go wrong) was in full force on the day prior. The Cornell team (#26) had their generator seize up the day before the race. They swapped in a spare in the hours prior to the flag dropping. How dedicated are the team? Well, they had a new transmission flown in from Singapore and installed during the NQE.

The top teams had spares of every major component, including a spare vehicle. They wanted every chance of taking the $2 million dollar prize. For example, the eventual winner, team Stanford (#3) has autonomous diagnosis on-board. They can power cycle problematic systems and resume racing.

The Red Team that filled the placings (#19 and #25) can run a virtual course built using detailed satellite maps. The robots had "experienced" the course before they even got to the starting gate. This cued the robot when to be careful and when to be aggressive.

The race itself was surreal – most unlike most motor racing events where if telemetry isn’t available, voice communications with the driver plays a significant role in the strategy. The start and finish were located on a dry lake bed, so the robots were far away before they hit the harder terrain. There are no direct communications from the robot allowed, so their creators could only watch the data feed provided by DARPA. Until their robot crossed the finish line or DARPA told them where to pick it up, they could only watch and wait.

More soon…

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