Self-driving car race tomorrow

Post by **Michael Pajaro** » Fri Mar 12, 2004 7:06 pm

15 computer-controlled cars will race across the desert tomorrow as a demonstration of self-driving vehicle technology. Unfortunately, I don't see a scanner on any of the vehicles. (I was hoping someone would add one for decoration.)

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/03/1 ... index.html

Official site:
http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/

Post by **neps** » Fri Mar 12, 2004 11:18 pm

And it looks like the Vehicles competing wont do as well as they hoped, so they had to lower the pre-qualifications to allow more vehicles in the race:

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0, ... tw=rss.TOP

And even then only four Vehicles completed the qualifying track:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... ST0085.DTL

Clearly its not the advancement we, or the government were hoping for.

knightshade · Post by **knightshade** » Sat Mar 13, 2004 9:30 am

neps wrote:
Clearly its not the advancement we, or the government were hoping for.

Well, the thing about DARPA is they're supposed to be doing the research and preliminary development for things that are at least 10 years away from working in a real world situation. It's their job to set the bar higher than anything that's achieveable. Challenges like that help push the state of the art, but I think they're probably used to having to hold second competitions or lowering the requirements.

Post by **Michael Pajaro** » Sat Mar 13, 2004 4:39 pm

The race is over, with no winner. This is embarrassing... Only 2 of the entries made it to the 7-mile mark (out of a 150 mile race). Eight didn't even go one mile. It's sad that they had so many mechanical failures, so that the technology side of things wasn't truly tested properly.

Back to the drawing boards...

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/03/1 ... index.html

KARR Engineer · Post by **KARR Engineer** » Sat Mar 13, 2004 5:01 pm

Yet again, the town Barstow mentioned...
And let KITT do the race and if he finishes it very fast, FLAG would get the million.

jup · Post by **jup** » Sun Mar 14, 2004 2:09 am

In retrospect, perhaps we should be thankful that even a quarter of the NASA space projects are such success stories.

kido · Post by **kido** » Sun Mar 14, 2004 10:41 pm

KARR Engineer wrote:Yet again, the town Barstow mentioned...
And let KITT do the race and if he finishes it very fast, FLAG would get the million.

Only if Devon LETS him win.

KARR Engineer · Post by **KARR Engineer** » Mon Mar 15, 2004 10:10 am

Oh, I'm sure FLAG could do with a million Dollars...

Post by **neps** » Mon Mar 15, 2004 11:54 am

They showed a video of it on the news here, and they showed a piece of the motorcycle that I mentioned in the race; it went two feet and fell. Alot of the clips they showed was of vechicles going off the track and falling into a ditch. Will be interesting to see what happens next time.

KnightRider2000 · Post by **KnightRider2000** » Mon Mar 15, 2004 4:04 pm

Perhaps no one winning was a good thing. This keeps the magic and alure of Knight Rider alive, and in our hearts.

-KnightRider2000

82TransAm · Post by **82TransAm** » Mon Mar 15, 2004 8:38 pm

It would have been so much easier for the vehicles if they would have a a front scanner. It would have been able to "See" the course and make corrections as needed. That along with GPS data probally would have gotten them a lot further. (I guess that would depend on current scanner technology though).

jup · Post by **jup** » Tue Mar 16, 2004 10:02 pm

Could have done better with a fleet of Roomba's, I suppose.

They probably would have swept up the first ten feet of the course before beginning on the ditches.

Garth4ever · Post by **Garth4ever** » Sun Mar 21, 2004 6:13 am

God I would LOVE to come to america and hang out with you guys and see cars race like that. But I cant afford to just yet. I live in hope though!!! There was a documentary on the other night about meer cats and they live in the desert. I hope none of the supercars will run them over! not that they would on purpose, or should I say, pourpoise! Anyway, as they have sentrys, to keep guard, that means they would see a car coming, unless kitt was in stealth mode, in which case they mightn't.

kindest regards

Knight of Sweden · Post by **Knight of Sweden** » Mon Mar 22, 2004 7:39 am

about this topic i have a very intresting thing to tell u
i live in sweden,
i aslo have some contacts in the "Technical univeristy of Luleå". and some guys over there have bought a pontiac togheter (they are also Knight Rider maniacs) and now with the help of the class and proffessors they are trying to build some kind of self driving car.. ofc they wont drive 150miles throught the desert but try to make it to ride the parkinglot..
ill keep u updated on this if u want to ...

Regards

Sweden . Over and out

Post by **Michael Pajaro** » Tue Mar 23, 2004 1:11 pm

Knight of Sweden wrote: they are trying to build some kind of self driving car...ill keep u updated on this if u want to ...

Please do!

Knight of Sweden · Post by **Knight of Sweden** » Wed Mar 24, 2004 8:47 am

ill got some updates on this topic now

talked a bit more with my friend.. one of those that are in charge of it,
they have got sponsors of some local companies..
so they have bhought 2x type of Laser system as the cops uses to see if u speed..
a laser kind of beam is sent out and reflects back and then see if any objects is far ahead or close of its way.. it does this every 2 seconds.. they have installer 2 of those under each headlight..
they first tested with some soft things.. and have now made the laser thingys to send a signal to a Red light "on top of the car" to flash when it reflects something in its way.. they are now working to make it be able to turn away of the Object by itself....and then go back to original travel line..
//KOS

Knight of Sweden · Post by **Knight of Sweden** » Tue Apr 13, 2004 2:24 pm

the self drinving car has now gone through a major improvment and manage driving around the parking lot by its own after about 20 Retries and re-configurations

the map ill show here is a hand made paint picture i made my self

because im not allowed to take pictures over there yet

well some explanations

* Orange things are stand still objects (cars etc)
* The Black lines are Parking-marks
* the green thing moves back and forward all the time.. with 40 sec timeing.
* The Red lines are the movement of the car (KITT)
* the red dots are where the car stops and do a manoeuver (for ex. Shifts gear , reverse direction)

if u guys have any questions i would love to hear them and i will bring them up to the guys working on it

maybe any ideas of same kind of techniq ur self

REgards KOS

Knight of Sweden · Post by **Knight of Sweden** » Wed Apr 14, 2004 11:01 am

Self-driving car race tomorrow

Self-driving car race tomorrow

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