www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.03/robot.html?tw=wn_tophead_8
By Douglas McGray A few hundred geeks are crammed into the Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles - engineering professors, defense contractors, stars of television robot wars, and more teenage boys and Red Bull representatives than any military science conference has ever seen. Surrounded by an art installation of ridiculously decorated cars, Air Force colonel Jose Negron is outlining the rules of the first-ever Grand Challenge, a driverless robot race from LA to Las Vegas. Its an odd experiment, even by the standards of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known for developing mechanical lobsters for the Navy and gene therapy to eliminate the need for sleep. We were sitting around a room planning this thing, says Negron, the races program chief, and we wondered if 50 people would show up. Photo by Carlos Serrao Team Berkeley, led by industrial engineering grad student Anthony Levandowski second from right, with Ruben Lobel, Kirk Feldkamp, Ognen Stojanovski, and Ray Juang.
The agency has funded research on autonomous ground vehicles for more than a decade, and contractors like Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics have whole divisions working on the problem. But the Pentagon wants a third of its trucks, tanks, and recon vehicles to operate on their own by 2015, and Darpa worries that without a leap or two, the science will arrive late. The high school student whos writing his software while his mothers banging on the door saying Come eat - thats who were looking for, Negron says, grinning but almost serious. On March 13, roughly a year away from todays kickoff party, robots will race along a 250-mile off-road course from the City of Angels to Sin City. Theyre on their own between the start and finish lines - there are no pit stops - and the exact course will remain a secret until that morning. The first one to Vegas within 10 hours wins a million bucks in cash courtesy of the Defense Department. Anyone from the US can enter - provided they have a robot Darpa deems viable and the money to build it. Sal Fish, tieless and Southern California tan, takes the stage next to the colonel. Darpa handpicked Fish - among the least likely guys ever to win a defense contract - from the world of desert racing, where he runs Score International, the organization behind the Baja 1000 and five other car races that show up on late-night ESPN.
Less than 10 percent of the trek, he says, pointing at a slide projected on the wall behind him, will run on paved roads like this one. Youll have to make sure you dont fall off onto a freeway or something. With any luck, there will be a train coming, so have your sensors running, he says. Ive had the pleasure, or misfortune, to drive at least three possible routes, and these are real tire eaters. Im having trouble figuring out how sensors - or whatever - are going to know theres water, and a trail on the other side. Mike Fagan, a consultant for IT contractor SRA International and one of the Grand Challenges early planners, has a few points to add. Robots wont be allowed to blow up other robots apparently, people have been asking.
Darpa will try to close the area around the race to the public, he says, but the robots could still come in contact with humans. At the very least, theyll encounter a team of about 20 biologists protecting endangered desert tortoises. There are no constraints on size, shape, or source of power for the robots. Pogo sticks, hoppers, wheels, treads, whatever you want, Fagan says. When a microphone appears in the center aisle, a line forms nearly the length of the room. Someone asks if he can mount sensors on a balloon thats tied to his robot. No, the Environmental Protection Agency doesnt want the land disturbed in addition to the endangered tortoises, theres concern about the safety of fringe-toed lizards, ground squirrels, and Mojave monkey flowers. Darpa gets rights to any military applications, and race contestants keep intellectual property rights. I wouldnt describe running over another vehicle as incidental contact, says Negron.
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