Virginia Tech qualifies two vehicles for $2 million DARPA Grand Challenge race
Two Virginia Tech engineering teams are among only 40 in the nation to qualify for the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge autonomous vehicle competition, which offers a cash prize of $2 million. In addition, Virginia Tech is one of only two competitors to qualify two vehicles — “Rocky” and “Cliff” — for the race across the Mojave Desert on Oct. 8.
DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), the research arm of the U.S. Defense Department, announced the qualifying teams on June 6. To successfully compete in the Grand Challenge, autonomous vehicles will have to navigate a course of about 150 miles through the Mojave Desert — with no human intervention allowed past the starting line.
The 40 qualifiers include 16 teams from universities and one from a high school. Companies, engineering firms and groups of individuals also formed qualifying teams. Virginia Tech and Carnegie Mellon University are the only competitors that have each developed two qualifying vehicles.
DARPA narrowed an original field of 195 entries to a first round group of 118 teams. In May, DARPA technical staff conducted on-site visits to select the 40 second-round qualifying vehicles, which had to navigate narrow 200-meter courses that included turns and randomly placed obstacles.
DARPA offered a prize of $1 million for the first Grand Challenge in March 2004. Cliff, the 2004 Virginia Tech entry, was one of only 15 out of an original field of 106 to qualify for the final starting line cut last year. No vehicle traveled farther than about seven miles during the 2004 race.
DARPA’s goal in sponsoring a second competition and increasing the prize to $2 million is to continue to encourage university and industry engineering teams to help develop unmanned vehicles that the military can deploy in dangerous situations. The competing teams receive no financial support from DARPA.
“The basic premise of robotics, including autonomous vehicles, is keeping people from having to perform dirty, dull or dangerous jobs — the ‘three Ds,’” said the Virginia Tech team’s adviser Charles Reinholtz, Alumni Distinguished Professor of mechanical engineering.
“The technologies employed in developing the vehicles for this competition have far-ranging uses,” Reinholtz said. “For example, unmanned military supply convoys and land mine clearing vehicles are of particular interest to DARPA. Robotic vacuum cleaning, lawn mowing, and coal mining are concepts that are catching on in everyday life.”
Both Virginia Tech autonomous vehicles have been developed from off-road, four-wheel-drive utility vehicles donated by Club Car. Cliff, updated from last year’s event, and Rocky, converted into an autonomous vehicle during the past academic year, have been programmed by Reinholtz and his teams of primarily undergraduate engineering students to interpret terrain and make all decisions about navigation, route planning and obstacle avoidance.
Cliff and Rocky are equipped with on-board computers that communicate with advanced sensing technology, including global mapping systems, Geographical Information System data, radar, laser rangefinders and thermal imaging cameras.
The Virginia Tech vehicles will compete in the national qualifying event at the California Speedway in Fontana, Calif., from Sept. 27 to Oct. 5. Of the 40 vehicles in that event, DARPA will chose 20 to go to the Grand Challenge starting line. The team whose vehicle completes the 150-mile Mojave Desert course the fastest within a 10-hour time period will win the $2 million prize.
