Tartan the boss of DARPA urban challenge: despite spectacular "detours," robots mostly played nicely with each other; the mysterious Jumbotron

Diesel Progress North American Edition, Dec, 2007 by Mike Osenga

With a goal of being at least as capable as a 16-year-old California driver, 11 robotic vehicles gathered at dawn on Nov. 3 in the high desert northeast of Los Angeles. The 11--10 cars, light trucks, SUVs and one very large truck--were all that remained of 89 teams that entered the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Urban Challenge.

At stake was $2 million for the winning team, $1 million for second and $500,000 for third place. The value of the eventual spin-offs of the technology on display on this Saturday morning at the edge of the Mojave Desert may be impossible to calculate.

The story of DARPA's various challenges is reasonably well known by now. Congress, recognizing in 2001 that convoy supply missions in wartime were causing a significant number of deaths and injuries to soldiers, mandated (via The National Defense Authorization Act) that one-third of all operational ground combat vehicles be unmanned by 2015.

DARPA's website notes: "Every 'dull, dirty or dangerous' task that can be carried out using a machine instead of a human protects our warfighters and allows valuable human resources to be used more effectively."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

DARPA, the agency of the U.S. government that started development that ended up producing the Internet, the Atlas rocket, stealth aircraft and airborne drones (among others), is charged with determining the technical feasibility of many of the "what ifs" proposed by the various branches of the U.S. military.

Thus were born the DARPA challenges for robotic vehicles.

In 2004, 15 robotic vehicles gathered near Barstow, Calif., for a 142 mile run to Primm, Nev. Nobody made it past the 8 mile marker.

In 2005, the DARPA Grand Challenge started in Primm and almost unbelievably five vehicles completed a 132 mile course through the desert, up and over mountains and down a treacherous mountain pass.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Now, robotic vehicle technology would face its toughest challenge--city driving. With the California driver's handbook as the guide, the 11 surviving vehicles, all of which were operating totally robotically without any human interface, would have to negotiate traffic circles, park, do the right thing at four-way intersections, pass, avoid and negotiate traffic--both human-driven vehicles and other robots. Except for dealing with robots, just about everything a 16-year-old Californian would have to do to get a driver's license.

All this was to be done over an approximately 60 mile course through the streets of the largely abandoned neighborhoods of the former George Air Force Base in Victorville, Calif. The site is currently used by the U.S. Army for urban training operations.

While prior to the Urban Challenge the layout was billed as "like Baghdad," it was actually closer to operation in a very rundown slice of Suburbia, U.S.A. But it was definitely urban driving, complete with 50 Ford Taurus cars serving as "local traffic" on defined routes throughout the course.

The drivers were outfitted like NASCAR competitors, with helmets and each car's interiors replaced with roll bars and cages, in case one of the "bots" chucked its controlling software and took off on its own. And there had been a robot/human car accident during the National Qualifying Event (NQE) the week preceding the Urban Challenge itself.

In DARPA's eyes, safely negotiating all this was no slam dunk, even with "chase" cars closely following each robotic vehicle. All of the robots were fitted with emergency "E-stop" buttons allowing them to be stopped, literally, in their tracks. The buttons would get a workout.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

"We weren't sure in the first hour or so that we wouldn't have robots running into each other all over the course and have no one finish the Urban Challenge," said DARPA Director Dr. Tony Tether. "I was very nervous before this whole thing got started.

"I was especially nervous when it came to 'bot on bot.' No one knew, no one could test, what would happen when autonomous robotic vehicles met on the street or at an intersection. We were all holding our breath."

And it looked at first like Tether's fears were well founded. In practice the day before the Urban Challenge, when a number of the robotic vehicles tried to leave the starting chutes at the same time, they suddenly found themselves confused and very much attracted to each other and went just about everywhere except out on the course.

With the 11 vehicles all equipped with some manner of GPS, sonar, light detection and ranging systems (LIDARs), as well as vision systems and laser sensors--all in very close proximity--it was apparent this was a busy operating environment in more ways than one. RFI was one of the main stories of the weekend.

[ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED]

The DARPA Urban Challenge would be contested in three, roughly two-hour "missions" with six to seven submissions within each mission. "Missions," DARPA said, were basically a prescribed path of waypoints throughout the course that would require the vehicles to successfully negotiate streets, intersections, traffic circles, desert roads, desert traffic circles, neighborhoods and tree-lined boulevards, as well as finding a specific parking spot in a large lot.