My previous post discussed Google’s autonomous robotic cars which it has been testing on the roads in California. One thing this post did not highlight is how difficult it is to build an autonomous vehicle. This example might give you a little bit better idea of both the difficulty and how few people/organizations are capable of rising to the challenge.
In 2004 DARPA hosted the first of a series of competitions for fully autonomous vehicles known as the Grand Challenge. This first competition was a 150 mile race through the Mojave Desert with a winner’s purse of $1 million. Of the 21 teams which entered only 7 were able to make it through the preliminary test which consisted of a 1 mile obstacle course that each entrant had to navigate successfully to be allowed to compete. In the final race not a single vehicle was able to complete the 150 mile course and the furthest any team got was 7.4 miles. All the vehicles either ran off the road or suffered mechanical failure.
Not to be deterred, DARPA tried again the next year. The race was similar to the previous one but used a different 132 mile course, which followed a dirt road and contained numerous sharp turns, several tunnels and a mountain pass. This time, 23 out of the initial 43 teams made it through the preliminary test and were allowed to race. In the race, 5 vehicles successfully completed the course but only 4 were within the 10 hour time limit.
The third race, commonly referred to as the Urban Challenge, was held in 2007 and used a 60 mile course through a simulated urban driving environment. The course included intersections, stop signs, multilane roads, parking lots and other challenges commonly encounter in an urban driving environment. The vehicles were required to obey all California traffic laws and complete a number of different challenges along the way. Of the 11 vehicles allowed in the final race 6 were able to complete all of the challenges and finish the race.
The following video gives some more information about Urban Challenge. The highlights from the race start 3min 20sec into the video.
If you want more information about these races, Wikipedia is a good place to start.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the connections between military research and engineering/technological development (connected to an NSF project I'm working on). This is a pretty fascinating case of a defense agency motivating technological development. They are doing the same in areas like renewable energy (so they don't have to truck fuel across the desert, for example). It's interesting to think about what we could do if we put that kind of muscle behind solely civilian applications.
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