Robot Cars to Do Battle in Desert Race
When 15 competitors lined up in Nevada last year for the U.S. Defense
Department’s first million-dollar robot race, hopes were high. The challenge: to
drive a vehicle without a human driver or remote control some 150 miles (241
kilometers) through the Mojave Desert. But those hopes quickly
went up in a cloud of dust as most robots barely managed to get off the starting
line. The best performer, a modified Humvee built by engineers at Pennsylvania’s
Carnegie Mellon University, traveled 7 miles (11 kilometers) before breaking
down. To robot devotees (热爱者), however, it was a minor
hiccup. No surprise, then, that 43 teams showed up to try out
for this year’s race, dubbed (被称作) the Grand Challenge. For the past week, teams
ranging from garage enthusiasts to well-funded university engineers have been
fine-tuning their machines at qualifying rounds here at the California Speedway
in Fontana, California. (Watch the robots in action in our exclusive
video.) Twenty-three finalists were announced Thursday for
Saturday’s Grand Challenge. The 175-mile (282-kilometer) course starts and
finishes in Primm, Nevada. The race promises to be even tougher
than last year’s run. But 18 months is an eternity in the robotics world, and
the technology has vastly improved. Organizers believe several
teams have a real shot of finishing the race in less than ten hours to earn the
grand prize of two million U.S. dollars. "When the first team
out of the Chute (斜道)--Mojavaton, a small team out of Colorado--made it
successfully around the 2.2-mile (3.5-kilometer) qualification course, I knew
right there and then that we had something special," said Ron Kurjanowicz, the
chief of staff for the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA), which is sponsoring the race. Unknown Course
The aim of the Grand Challenge, Defense Department! officials say, is to
spur development of autonomous ground vehicles that can operate in dangerous
environments, such as war zones, keeping soldiers out of harm’s way.
A U.S. Congress mandate (训令) requires that one-third of military ground
vehicles drive themselves by 2015, but the technology to meet that mandate does
not yet exist. So the government looked to enterprising teams to
develop the technology for driverless vehicles, sweetening its offer with the
two-million-dollar purse. None of the 23 teams knows what lies
ahead for this year’s race. DARPA won’t reveal the exact route until two hours
before the start of the race on Saturday. But the obstacles on
the Fontana qualification course--including a steel-enforced tunnel that wipes
out a vehicle’s global positioning system--are made to resemble the rugged,
real-life conditions that the vehicles will have to navigate.
The vehicles use sensors such as lasers, cameras, and radar to help them
avoid obstacles such as rocks and cliffs. The computer’s brain has to figure out
how to resolve unexpected conflicts, like a boulder sitting in the middle of the
road. "Think about all the decisions that you and I have to make
when we drive from our house to the store," Kurjanowicz said. "These vehicles
have to do the same thing, without a driver." Among the top
contenders in Saturday’s race is TerraMax, a massive truck originally built by
the Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Truck Corporation for the U.S. Marine
Corps. In last year’s race, TerraMax managed to go only 1.2
miles (2 kilometers). Team leader Gary Schmiedel expects to do much better this
year. He pointed to the new all-wheel steering feature on the truck as an
important addition. "We can move this large, 15-ton (13.5-metric
ton) payload vehicle in a turn that’s equivalent to that of a Humvee," he
said. Ghostrider The resources of teams like TerraMax
or Carnegie Mellon University, which has two vehicles in the race this year, are
a far cry from those of some of the other competitors, including inventors,
electricians, and even a high school team. One entry, from a
Southern California team of engineers, racers, and hot-rodders, is called It
Came From the Garage. It has a beer keg (小桶) stuck on the back and an
on-offswitch that says "brain." "Most of the schools and
organizations we’re up against are just accessorizing conventional vehicles,"
said team leader Chris "C.J." Pedersen, a former actor. "Our vehicle is a
custom-built, 21st-century hot rod...complete with hood scoop and exhaust coming
off the side." Anthony Levandowski, a robotics builder from
Berkeley, California, is back with Ghostrider, the only motorcycle robot in the
qualifications. Studded with sensors and computers, it toppled (翻倒) over after 3
feet (1 meter) in last year’s race. Levandowski, who had to
postpone his graduate studies when he couldn’t find a faculty advisor who
believed it would be possible to build the motorcycle robot, says his vehicle
has some distinct advantages. "We’re smaller and go a lot more
places," he said while tinkering with the robot before another trial run. "We’re
also a lot less expensive. This bike costs as much as a tire or a wheel of some
of these other guys’ machines." Smart Money Neither
Ghostrider nor It Came From the Garage made the final cut at this week’s
qualifying races. However, another crowd-pleaser, Cajunbot--or
the Ragin’ Cajun--a converted all-terrain vehicle developed by a team from the
University of Louisiana in Lafayette, did. The smart money in
Saturday’s race may be on Stanley, a converted Volkswagen Touareg made by a team
at California’s Stanford University. It was the only vehicle that didn’t hit an
obstacle in the trial runs. Even if none of the vehicles
finishes the race this year, DARPA’s Kurjanowicz said, the event has succeeded
in galvanizing robotics developers and pushing the creation of new
technologies. "The beauty of the Grand Challenge is that it
doesn’t tell people how to solve the problem," he said. "The community has come
up with its own elegant solutions." The passage mainly describes the advantages and disadvantages of robot car races.