Robotic VX to compete again!

[Art]

Some of you may have seen the NOVA special about the Great Robot Race:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/darpa/outtakes.html

Yes, that's our VX in the amusing section ... the VX detects the parked car and picks the wrong side (left) quickly slamming on the brakes in a panic to avoid the concrete barrier. That was at the qualifying event in the semi-finals... we didn't make it to the race.

Today DARPA announced the next Grand Challenge, the Urban Challenge... 60 miles of dealing with traffic, pulling out of parking spots, making left-hand turns at busy intersections, merging into traffic, etc. It is not off-road (some unpaved roads with potholes perhaps) but nothing to challenge the VX. We are still happy with our choice of vehicle. We have a year to write the software and then half a year of testing ahead of us.
I've been busy since the race with the software... Yes fellow VX'ers we are still in the game.

http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge

[mbeach]

This'll be interesting -most human beings can't even deal with traffic.

[Ruflyf]

looking foreward to some vdeo of this

[Triathlete]

Glad to see you guys are still "tinkering" around with the RoboVX! Was wondering what had happened to you guys. Keep us updated of the progress. This challenge should make the last one seem like a walk in the park. Good luck!

[Art]

WormGod has contributed his 3D model of the VX to the cause! We will be using the 3D model as part of our visualization tool to better understand the behavior of our robot and its perception of the environment. This contribution is very much appreciated... vehicross.info rocks! Gary rocks!

[WormGod]

Good luck to the team Art. I am just glad to see the model getting some worthy use.

[Velvis]

I know of a maroon Mercury that ALMOST negotiated it's way around a car and a bus and through on-coming Southbound traffic to make a U-turn into Northbound traffic and INTO MY PATH! Perhaps you could brain-tap the driver and put his skill to use. Let me know if I need to collect the head. Sorry, just a little bitter...deep breath...

velvis

[Art]

Yeah, human drivers can be dangerous... maybe someday robots will do a better job.
But for now, you know what they say "To err is human....to really foul things up requires a computer."

[Moncha]

Very cool!!! Glad this place and all of it's connections can be of help..

Keep up the dream!!

[Art]

We are one of 89 teams competing in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. We are partnering with the Computer Science department at The University of Texas (Robotics/Artificial Intelligence). Checkout a recent picture of our VX with the Texas license plate "ROBOT" :



Here's our official picture at the DARPA website.

[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