Robotic VX to compete again!

[Ruflyf]

Sweet, so how much $$ is sitting on/in that thing right now?

[fuzzy]

And do you have closer pictures of the roof rack? I would love to know how you are securing things up there.

[Art]

Sorry for the late reply... I've uploaded a picture to the gallery, click here .

The picture shows how we mount sensors onto our robotic VX (Ironman Edition). We bolted a specially laminated sensor board, a.k.a. an old formica table-top :-) to the roof rack, then bolt the sensors to the formica tabletop... errrr sensor board. The blue "snorkel" is used to route wires from the sensors to the inside of the vehicle (the side window is replaced with a transparent acrylic panel and the snorkel is attached with a seal to the panel). The big sensor on the roof is a 200 pound rotating laser. It has 64 lasers that each capture over 4,000 points 360 degrees around the car, 20 times per second (a 5 milion point cloud per second). It was built by another team for last year's competition, we tested it. They are selling a much smaller and lighter version of it now as a product... price tag is $75K.

Although it would be a lot of work, we could actually restore the VX to its original condition. We had a couple of scrapes in last years qualifying event, you'd have to look closely to notice them.

[Art]

Competition starts tomorrow... our robotic VX is one of 35 vehicles ready to take on DARPA's Urban Challenge:

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/34546/113/
http://www.austinrobot.com
http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge

Hopefully it won't be a demolition derby

[etlsport]

awesome good luck man! ill be rootin for ya

[Triathlete]

Thanks for the update.
Good luck in the urban setting.
Be sure to let us know how it goes...












...And of course PICTURES PICTURES PICTURES!!!!!!!

[Scott Harness]

Front page of the Dallas Morning News- Pictures and two page story-named Marvin from The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy