Autoblog

If you're really looking forward to the day when your car says, "You just relax, Dave, and let me do the driving," it just got a little bit closer. GM and Carnegie Mellon University have announced a 5-year, $5 million Collaborative Research Laboratory (CRL) to do work on autonomous vehicles.

Carnegie Mellon's Tartan Racing entrant in last year's DARPA Urban Challenge, Boss (pictured), was the first across the line. The winning partnership and the $2 million winners check made it a natural fit for the two to combine on further research now that the major technical issues have been mostly addressed. The two parties also have another CRL, separate from the autonomous research, that has been going on for eight years.

The autonomous research will be focused on developing the underlying technologies for autonomous vehicles. According to Professor Rajkumar, "Autonomous vehicles will change the face of transportation by reducing deaths and injuries from automobile accidents and increasing the convenience and comfort of vehicles." Until they become self aware and decide to take over the Skynet system, at least...

[Source: GM]

John McElroy is host of the TV program "Autoline Detroit". Every week he'll bring his unique insights as an auto industry insider to Autoblog readers.


click above image for more live shots from DARPA by John McElroy

DARPA DEBRIEF
By John McElroy

The DARPA Urban Challenge wrapped up this past weekend and it has to be one of the most exciting automotive events I've ever attended. There was an electricity in the air. You could feel the energy. It was almost like being at a Formula One race, but with an aura of real importance to it.

I think everyone there realized we were witnessing history in the making, like going to see one of the first flights of the Wright brothers. To me, this race proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that autonomous vehicles (driverless) will be a reality in about another decade.

There have been all kinds of media reports on how Carnegie-Mellon University won the race, followed by Stanford in second and Virginia Tech in third. So rather than re-report what you probably already know, here's some background of what it was like to be there.

Follow the jump for more from John McElroy, and check out his live pics from the DARPA Urban Challenge in the gallery below.


Live Photos Copyright ©2007 John McElroy / Weblogs, Inc.

After the DARPA dust settled, only 40 minutes separated the first, second and third place contenders for this year's $2 million bounty. The Carnegie Mellon team, behind the virtual wheel of a tech'd-out Tahoe dubbed the "Boss," won the DARPA Urban Challenge, the first event held in a mock city environment.

The Mellon crew beat out Stanford, Virginia Tech and MIT, and according to Wired's report, none of the top competitors were cited for traffic violations – something that most manned vehicles can't claim. Average speeds ranged from 13 to 14 mph over the course of the 55-mile trek. There was no mention of top speed and we're still uncertain about what specific obstacles were set out to befuddled the ghosts inside the machine.

There's no word yet on whether the DARPA event will continue, as many maintain that since the technical end of things have been sorted, it's time for private firms to take the lead. We'll have more on DARPA when Mr. McElroy reports on the event later in the week.

[Sources: GM (Press Release after the jump), Wired]

click above image for more pics from the 2007 DARPA Urban Grand Challenge

Route 66 passes right through Victorville, California, which is also home to the Route 66 Museum. Much breathless prose has been expended on the joys of piloting your buggy down the Great Diagonal Way. Antithetical to getting your kicks on Route 66 is the DARPA Urban Grand Challenge, hosted by Victorville. The contest, with a $2 million dollar, prize saw 11 teams send off driverless cars with a couple pats on the bumper and the admonishment to write home if they got work. Past DARPA Challenge winner Stanford got its car across the finish line first, with teams from Carnegie Mellon and Virginia Tech also managing to squeak across in the allotted six hours. Cornell and MIT-based teams were over the time limit, and a couple of teams had their vehicles lose their minds or crack into each other. In all, the contest was far more successful than the initial running in 2004, when nobody finished. The winner will be announced later today and be crowned based on speed as well as safety through the 60-mile course. Autoblog editor emeritus John McElroy was in attendance and will have his report for us on the DARPA Urban Grand Challenge later in the week.

[Source: Reuters, photos by STRINGER/Getty]

John McElroy is host of the TV program "Autoline Detroit". Every week he'll bring his unique insights as an auto industry insider to Autoblog readers.

LOOK MA, NO HANDS!
By John McElroy

There are so many things that I could have done this week. Like go to the SEMA show in Vegas. Or to the auto show in Tokyo. Or the national media launch of the smart in San Jose. Or the launch of the Chevrolet Malibu in Memphis. But I turned them all down. Instead, I'm going to the DARPA Urban Challenge in Victorville, California.

The what in where, you ask?

We've told you about the DARPA Urban Challenge and previewed several of the cars that are entered, including Stanley. Stanley is the autonomous Volkswagen Passat from the same Stanford Racing Team that won the last DARPA Grand Challenge. As a reminder, the Urban Challenge takes the idea of autonomous vehicles from the last event and transposes the event from an off-road course to an urban environment.

The organizers have winnowed the list of eighty-nine entrants down to fifty-three that will move on to the next stage. Staff from DARPA will be visiting the remaining teams in June to verify that the vehicles are operable. The final event will take place on November 3, 2007, but the location won't be disclosed until closer to the race.

[Source: Automotive Design Line]

The upcoming DARPA Urban Challenge set to take place this fall will be an extraordinary test of autonomous systems being developed for automotive applications. Previous DARPA challenges contained entrants with all sorts of hardcore, computer-powered gear littering their exteriors. Giant rotating satellite dishes and rows of rooftop-mounted infrared cameras were a common site. The same will likely be true of many vehicle's entered in this fall's Urban Challenge, but one team will be fielding this rather sleek and normal-looking Volkswagen Passat TDI wagon.

Developed by Team LUX, which is sponsored and staffed by a company called Sick and its Ibeo automotive division, the LUX car will have just two laser sensors located up front and one in back to help it blindly navigate the Urban Challenge course. The team says despite the lack of ostentatious gear, its minimalist approach will still provide a full 360 degress of detection. The real test will be whether the Team LUX car parks itself on top of an undetected fire hydrant during the competition. AutoblogGreen will be on-site at the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge to bring us reports on which cars can successfuly operate without a master.

[Source: Engadget]

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is part of the US Defense Department, and it provides funding to all kinds of researchers for projects that might at some point have a useful military application. Over the last several decades they have funded many projects, some of which have made it into the civilian mainstream, like a little network you might have heard of called the internet (which was originally born as ArpaNet). One of the better known recent projects, is the DARPA Grand Challenge, the first running of which in 2004 turned into a complete fiasco. The $1 million prize for the first running went unclaimed, because none of the vehicles completed the 142 mile course through the California desert. In fact, the farthest anyone got was seven miles, with most of the teams not even getting off the starting line.

Eighteen months later, with the prize money doubled, they tried again, and this time a team from Stanford University finally succeeded (along with three other teams), and completed a 132-mile course from Barstow, California to Primm, Nevada. The Stanford team equipped a Red-Bull sponsored Volkswagen Touareg, nick-named Stanley, with more computer power than the Apollo moon missions, and the SUV ran the distance in a little over 7 seven hours with no human intervention once the race began. In November, DARPA will try again, this time with an Urban Challenge. Instead of a desert course, the teams will traverse a sixty-mile mock urban environment. For this year's event, Stanford has created Junior, a VW Passat wagon packed with laser rangefinders, radar, GPS, and enough Intel Core 2 Duo processors to power a small data center. The car is not allowed to crash and must obey all California traffic laws while it's running, which would likely make it the only vehicle on the road to do so. You can find out more about Junior at the Stanford Racing Team web-site, and learn about the event at the DARPA Urban Challenge site.

[Source: Stanford Racing Team via Engadget]

Now this is what we call an upgrade: NC State University's Insight Racing team has scored a new set of wheels for the upcoming 2007 DARPA Grand Challenge. The team's Chevrolet Suburban, dubbed "Desert Rat" for the last DARPA challenge, which sent vehicles across the Mojave in the final event, will sit this one out. Instead, Insight will field "Lone Wolf," the new Lotus Elise which was presented to them by the automaker last week. In addition to the car, Insight will be receiving support from Lotus Engineering, who will help transform the sports car into the autonomous machine it needs to be to make it through the preliminary rounds and into the final Urban Challenge event. That task is made even more difficult when you consider that an Elise offers a fraction of the on-board space that was available in the Suburban. Expect to see plenty of innovation as they cram all the required technology into the Lotus' compact package.

The cruelest irony of all is that the Insight Racing team has to rig the Elise -- a driver's car if there ever was one -- to be completely driverless. We have a feeling that, given the chance, this is one instance where the engineering students would gladly forego the high-technology and get behind the wheel themselves. The 2007 DARPA Grand Challenge finale is scheduled for November 2007.

[Sources: NC State Technician Online & PhysOrg.com]

Every week, in garages around the world, amateur racers spend their hard-earned day-job dollars repairing and improving all sorts of racecars, with one goal in mind - winning a tacky plastic trophy on the weekend. Now the U.S. government has honored that hallowed tradition, announcing that the robot drivers in the upcoming 2007 DARPA Grand Challenge will forgo the $2 million cash prize previously promised to the winner, in exchange for - a trophy! (Probably a mil-spec trophy that they'll pay too much for, but still.)

Actually, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency isn't trying to save money (taxpayers should be so lucky). Congress recently changed the rules for the Department of Defense, and it no longer has the authority to award cash prizes.

Robot fans needn't be too concerned about a lack of entries for next year's event - the eleven "Track A" teams selected this month for the 2007 Urban Challenge will each receive from DARPA up to $1 million in technology development funding, in addition to the support of their corporate sponsors. The A-teams include last year's winner Stanford University and perennial contenders Carnegie-Mellon University, as well as big-time defense contractors Raytheon and Honeywell.

"Track B" teams, which receive no funding from DARPA, can still earn their way into the final competition for the DARPA mugs by successfully completing qualifying events. The Urban Challenge final event requires competitors to safely complete a 60-mile simulated urban area course (in traffic) in under six hours.

[via engadget]