Three vehicles beat the standard in $2 million robot raceThree robotic vehicles cruised past the finish
line Saturday in a Pentagon-sponsored race across the rugged Mojave desert,
giving scientists hope that robots could one day wage battles without
endangering soldiers.
![]() "The impossible has been achieved," cried Stanford University's Sebastian Thrun, after the university's customized Volkswagen crossed first. Students cheered, hoisting Thrun atop their shoulders. Also finishing was a converted red Hummer named "H1ghlander" and a Humvee named "Standstorm" from Carnegie Mellon University. The Stanford robot dubbed "Stanley" overtook the top-seeded H1ghlander at the 102-mile mark of the 132-mile course. "I'm on top of the world," said Carnegie Mellon robotics professor William "Red" Whittaker, who said a mechanical glitch allowed Stanley to pass H1ghlander. I hope someone got video of one robot passing another! The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, plans to award $2 million to the fastest vehicle to cover the race in less than 10 hours. The taxpayer-funded race was intended to spur innovation and development of robots that could be used on the battlefield without remote controls. ------------ Last year's much-hyped inaugural robot race ended without a winner when all the self-navigating vehicles broke down shortly after leaving the starting gate. Carnegie Mellon's Sandstorm chugged the farthest at 71/2 miles. Of the 23 robots that competed Saturday, 15 vehicles failed to navigate the entire 132-mile course, but most still managed to beat Sandstorm's mileage last year. ------------ Vehicles have to drive on rough, winding desert roads and dry lake beds filled with overhanging brush and man-made obstacles. The machines also must traverse a narrow 1.3-mile mountain pass with a steep drop-off and go through three tunnels designed to knock out their GPS signals. ------------ The so-called Grand Challenge race is part of the Pentagon's effort to cut the risk of casualties by fulfilling a congressional mandate to have a third of all military ground vehicles unmanned by 2015. The military currently has a small fleet of autonomous ground vehicles stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the machines are remotely controlled by a soldier who usually rides in the same convoy. The Pentagon wants to eliminate the human factor and use self-thinking robotic vehicles to ferry supplies in war zones. It’s astonishing to see what only 2 years of a competition like this can produce. Posted: Sat - October 8, 2005 at 07:19 PM |