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Robots, Start Your Engines

University and research lab teams to compete on mock city course

By Lucas Laursen,  Newser Staff

Posted Nov 2, 2007 12:30 PM CDT
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(Newser) – Some of the most high-tech vehicles in the world will compete for big money by zipping around a race course tomorrow, all without one low-tech component—a human driver. Eleven robotic vehicles will race in a simulated city environment at a former Air Force base in California, Forbes reports. The winner gets $2 million and a crack at military contracts.

Top robotics teams from leading universities will compete in the Urban Challenge, run by a military agency known as DARPA. The goal is to develop technology that would allow driverless vehicles to deliver supplies to troops. The cars will have to make real-time decisions about roadblocks, lane changes, and intersections. Dozens of cars with real drivers will also be on the course.

Princeton university student Jonathan Mayer sits in a car nearby as he uses a remote device to try to regain control of a driverless SUV after it drove off the road into a field Monday, July 9, 2007, in Plainsboro, N.J. The vehicle created by Princeton's PAVE, Princeton Autonomous...
Princeton university student Jonathan Mayer sits in a car nearby as he uses a remote device to try to regain control of a driverless SUV after it drove off the road into a field Monday, July 9, 2007,...   (Associated Press)
A red 'kill' button is mounted on the roof of an SUV that Princeton University students with PAVE, Princeton Autonomous Vehicle Engineering, prepared to operate driverless Monday, July 9, 2007 in Plainsboro, N.J,to be evaluated by members of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for the Pentagon's Urban...
A red 'kill' button is mounted on the roof of an SUV that Princeton University students with PAVE, Princeton Autonomous Vehicle Engineering, prepared to operate driverless Monday, July 9, 2007 in Plainsboro,...   (Associated Press)
Junior Stanford Racing Team's entry in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. Junior is a diesel powered Passat wagon. (PRNewsFoto/Volkswagen of America, Inc.)
"Junior" Stanford Racing Team's entry in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. "Junior" is a diesel powered Passat wagon. (PRNewsFoto/Volkswagen of America, Inc.)   (Associated Press)
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Complete coverage, including videos
TG Daily

Every entrant flunked a similar test in 2004
AFP

More on the Urban Challenge
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

More details of the competition
ComputerWorld

Facts about DARPA
Wikipedia

 
US military • robots • DARPA • autonomous cars • Urban Challenge

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