DARPA vehicles to battle on the streets
The DARPA Grand Challenge participants will leave their dusty surrounds on the Sonoran desert and into an urban environment in November 2007. The newly coined Urban Grand Challenge will be held in a mock metropolis, requiring the entrants to negotiate all the ever-changing factors their human counterparts face on a regular basis.
During the 60-mile, six-hour long event, robo-vehicles will be expected to obey basic traffic laws, merge onto roadways, observe stop signs, negotiate around buildings, moving objects and even face the daunting task of parking in a designated lot.
Currently, eleven teams are confirmed for next year's event, with several more entrants to be announced later this month.
[Source: New Scientist Tech]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Whydrive 12:10PM (10/05/2006)
I wonder if Berkeley's gonna be one of the teams and whether they'll try the motorcycle again.
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Taylor Alexander 4:18PM (10/05/2006)
Not to be one of "those guys", but isn't this, like, old news? The new news is the no cash prize thing you also reported on, but just the fact that there's an urban challenge has been public for like, a long time (i feel like it's been at least 6 months...). What's with reporting on it now?
-Taylor
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Damon Lavrinc 8:07PM (10/05/2006)
Taylor, you're not mistaken. I got a distinct feeling of deja vu when writing this. Just did a search and found a post about it 5 months back. Thanks for not being a $%&# about it, though.
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Evan Hayden 12:10PM (10/07/2006)
It's good to hear that the event is going to be in a "mock metropolis", because when I heard about the urban setting before, I thought it was going to be in an actual city ...which could quickly turn into liability city.
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