From: LARRY KLAES (ljk4_at_msn.com)
Date: Tue Sep 27 2005 - 21:13:40 UTC
>From: cunews_at_cornell.edu
>Reply-To: cunews_at_cornell.edu
>To: CUNEWS-PHYSICAL_SCIENCE-L_at_cornell.edu (CUNEWS-PHYSICAL_SCIENCE-L),
> CUNEWS-CAMPUS-L_at_cornell.edu (CUNEWS-CAMPUS-L),
>CUNEWS-SCIENCE-L_at_cornell.edu (CUNEWS-SCIENCE-L)
>Subject: Featuring Cornell: DARPA Grand Challenge
>Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 16:40:06 -0400
>
>Cornell vehicle will try to drive 175 miles of rough terrain without human
>control for a prize of $2 million
>http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Sept05/DARPAchallenge.ws.html
>
>Sept. 27, 2005
>
>By Bill Steele
>ws21_at_cornell.edu
>
>
>ITHACA, N.Y. -- A challenge: Build a car that can drive itself.
>
>The DARPA Challenge: Build a car that can drive itself across 175 miles of
>desert with unpaved roads, ditches, berms, sandy ground, standing water,
>rocks and boulders, narrow underpasses, construction equipment, concrete
>safety rails, power line towers, barbed wire fences, cattle guards and
>maybe even tank traps.
>
>Impossible? Probably. But a team of Cornell engineering students is in
>California trying, as contestants in the 2005 DARPA Challenge. They suspect
>they won't succeed, but they don't think anyone else will either. In last
>year's competition, the most successful car only went 7.5 miles before
>breaking down.
>
>Cornell is entering the competition for the first time this year and has
>been selected as one of 43 semifinalists based on its technical
>specifications and a site visit. The actual competition began Sept. 27 with
>a series of qualification events on a closed course to narrow the field to
>an expected 20 finalists for the final grueling test on Oct. 8. Events on
>Oct. 8 can be monitored remotely over the Internet at
><http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge>.
>
>It's an event that has "wait till next year!" built in, according to Matt
>Grimm '06, leader of the business team that supports the engineers. DARPA
>(the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration) has offered a $2
>million prize for the builders of the vehicle that can complete the course
>in the shortest time (with a 10-hour maximum). The goal is to create
>autonomous vehicles that can transport supplies or perform reconnaissance
>in dangerous places -- like Iraqi highways -- without endangering troops.
>Beyond that, the technology has applications in disaster response and space
>exploration. By making the task hard enough to require several years of
>trial and error, Grimm said, DARPA will get thoroughly tested ideas. But,
>he adds, Cornell is going in with a design that could succeed.
>
>The Cornell team includes about 30 students, subdivided into computer
>science, mechanical, sensors and business teams. They have been working on
>the project since the spring of 2004. Several members of the team spent
>most of August testing the vehicle at the airport in Mojave, Calif., and at
>Jawbone Canyon, an off-road vehicle recreation site north of Mojave
>offering steep hills, cliffs and washboards. So far, their vehicle, which
>they have christened "Titan," has driven many miles through sweltering heat
>and rain with no system failures.
>
>Four undergraduates on the team became so involved that they decided not to
>return to Ithaca this fall and have taken a semester's leave. In its
>technical report, the team noted, "The real-world engineering experience
>this contest offers is unparalleled at most universities and unequaled in
>any classroom."
>
>The course will start and end in Primm, Nev., about 50 miles south of Las
>Vegas on the California-Nevada border, but DARPA will not reveal the route
>until the beginning of the test. Then, each team will be given a CD with
>the route laid out as a series of waypoints identified by latitude and
>longitude, precise down to 15 centimeters. The vehicle must figure out for
>itself how to get from one waypoint to the next, avoiding natural and
>man-made obstacles. The only command the team is allowed to give the
>vehicle is "start."
>
>The Cornell team started with one of the most rugged off-road vehicles
>available, a Spider Light Strike Vehicle, manufactured and donated by
>Singapore Technologies. The all-terrain vehicle is built to military
>specifications and tested in combat, so it is much better able to cope with
>off-road conditions than an ordinary SUV or truck. The team figures that
>even if their sophisticated control system can't avoid an obstacle, the
>Spider might just be able to drive over it.
>
>The vehicle navigates using an on-board Global Positioning System (GPS)
>unit accurate to within 10 centimeters, inertial and attitude sensors,
>stereoscopic vision and three LIDAR (light detection and ranging) sensors.
>They all feed into an elaborate artificial intelligence (AI) decision
>system that creates a small map of the immediate area around the vehicle,
>decides what path to follow and relays commands to controllers operating
>the engine, transmission and brakes. The AI not only can avoid obstacles,
>but also executes three-point turns and finds its way out of dead ends. The
>AI incorporates several different decision-making algorithms for different
>situations, ranging from high-speed driving over open country to careful
>navigation around obstacles.
>
>In order to complete the course in 10 hours, the vehicle will have to
>average 17.5 mph. But since it may spend part of its journey moving very
>slowly over rough terrain, it will sometimes have to hit 35 to 40 mph.
>Thanks to powerful AMD Opteron server computers, also donated, the AI can
>think faster than the vehicle can move. It also monitors vehicle health
>with sensors reporting engine and transmission temperatures and can detect
>failure of any of the vehicle's sensors.
>
>The entire Cornell team consists of Derek Benston, M.Eng., Marcin Bojanczyk
>'07, Mike Brown '05, Eugene Byrne, M.Eng., Jason Catlin '08, Adam Eschner
>'05, MattGrimm '06, Will Jessop '06, Dave Kaplan '05, Matt Kosakowski '07,
>Hank Law '05, Alex Lee '05, Arthur Lin, M.Eng., Sergei Lupashin '05, Pete
>Meakin '05, Isaac Miller, Ph.D., Aaron Nathan '06, Ben Provan '05, M.A.E.,
>Frank Robert-Kline '08, Bhavin Rokad '07, Herve Roussel, M.Eng., Brian
>Schimpf '06, Yong Shin, M.Eng., Dan Stufflebean '06, Ken Suntarat, M.Eng.,
>Mike Tajima '05, Erinc Tokluoglu '07, Garet Touchstone '06, Alan Turnquist,
>M.Eng., Joe Wasniewski '06, Mike Yu, M.Eng., and Noah Zych '06.
>
>Faculty advisers are Ephrahim Garcia, associate professor of mechanical and
>aerospace engineering, Hod Lipson, assistant professor of mechanical and
>aerospace engineering, and Dan Huttenlocher and Bart Selman, professors of
>computer science.
>
>Along with Singapore Technologies and AMD, major team sponsors include
>Northrup Grumman, VT Miltope, XCOR Aerospace, Tektronix, Dana Corp.,
>General Motors, Sensor Systems and Seneca Data. Altogether, Grimm says, the
>team has raised almost $450,000, mostly in donated equipment but including
>$116,000 in cash donations.
>
>Additional sponsors are Mathworks, Moog, Analog Devices, Cornell College of
>Engineering, Avalanche Engineering, Kinetic Ceramics, Maxon Motor Corp.,
>Trimble, Kionix, Harmonic Drive Technologies, CelCole Inc., Bronze,
>Sway-A-Way, Vicor, CSA Engineering Inc., KC HiLites, Gidel, Texas
>Instruments, Point Research, Altera, SICK, Traquair, Howe Performance Power
>Steering, Omnistar, Cooper Bussman, BGF Industries Inc., Freescale
>Semiconductor, Alpha Wire Co., Space Explorations Technologies, Inland
>Empire Driveline, Cornell University Intelligent Information Systems
>Institute, Interco Tire Corp., Phytec, Code 3 Public Safety Equipment,
>Commtech-Fastcom, K&N Engineering.
>
>-30-
>
>Media Contact: Blaine Friedlander Jr.
>Phone: (607) 254-8093
>E-mail: bpf2_at_cornell.edu
>
>--
>
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>312 College Ave.
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>cunews_at_cornell.edu
>http://www.news.cornell.edu
>
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