| EDWARD EVERS | Robot Workshop | The DARPA Grand Challenge |
Congratulations to the Stanford Racing Team on their two million dollar victory and historic completion of the October 8th 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge. Four other teams also completed the autonomous vehicle race on the 132 mile on and off-road course in the desert near Prim Nevada. In crossing the finish line, each team has set a line in time which separates the speculative potential of robotic vehicle control from the concrete certainty that autonomous vehicle are here and a proven effective technology.
In February of 2003, I teamed up with Lavar Askew, founder of n-tegral technologies, to pull together a technical and promotional team focused on the goal of participating in and winning the first DARPA Grand Challenge. Within one month of our initial meeting at the Grand Challenge Competitors' Conference on February 22 of 2003, I, acting as team leader, had pulled together a small but capable team of five members: team leader, software specialist, mechanic, mathematician, and sponsorship/promotions.
Lavar and I took on the primary task of envisioning, designing, planning, and technical paper writing for the n-trepid, our would-be contender in the 2004 race. Our chief mechanic provided essential feedback and recommendations that were integrated into the design and also address many of the basic vehicle questions posed in the DARPA Grand Challenge Technical paper requirements. Our mathematician provided research and thoughts on mapping and navigation and was also a key supporter in putting together the first draft of the team's technical paper.
While each of our team members were unquestionable with regard to ability and vision, it became apparent over the course of the year that the time demands on the members by their respective every day work schedules would cost the overall project in terms of time devoted to the project itself. Still, much research and planning was accomplished by the collective members and by October of 2003, Lavar and I had managed to piece together a full technical paper and submit it to the DARPA staff.
Shortly after the event in March of 2004, I received from the DARPA staff a certificate of participation for our team, n-tegral technologies team. The original certificate, picture below, has been present, with much thanks and gratitude, to Lavar, the founder of n-tegral and chief genius behind our efforts.
As representative of the n-tegral team, I again journeyed to the Competitors' Conference for the 2005 DGC in August of 2004. This time, with full recognition of the technical hurdles discovered by the 2004 competitors and, moreover, with full understanding of the availability limitation of the team members, it was decided that the n-tegral technologies team would take a break from the second race and strategize and regroup for another anticipated future race.
Learn from the experience of the 2004 and 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge and prepare for a second run at that prize in the not too distant future.
Following are the roles that will need to be carried out for this project. Note that there is not a strict one-to-one correspondence between roles and team members -- some team members will serve in more than one role, and some roles will require more than one team member.
Sponsors interested in advancing the state of the art and supporting a winning effort are being sought.
DGC 2005: Items in bold are dates set by DARPA.
| Jun 08, 2004 | Grand Challenge 2005 Announcement |
| Aug 14, 2004 | Grand Challenge Participants’ Conference |
| Mar 11, 2005 | Application Deadline (CLOSED) |
| Apr 04, 2005 | Site Visit Announcement |
| Jun 01, 2005 | Semi-Finalist Announcement |
| Sept 27 -Oct 06, 2005 | National Qualification Event California Speedway (Fontana, California) |
| Oct 08, 2005 | Grand Challenge Event |
DGC 2004: Items in bold are dates set by DARPA.
| Feb 22, 2003 | Grand Challenge Competitors’ Conference |
| Apr 01, 2003 | Application Period Opens |
| Oct 14, 2003 | Technical Paper Submission Deadline |
| Oct 14, 2003 | Application Period Closes |
| Mar 08-12, 2004 | Qualification Inspection & Demonstration |
| Mar 09, 2004 | DARPA Tech Ceremonial Start |
| Mar 13, 2004 | Grand Challenge Main Event |
Following is the rough order of the plan. Some of these things are iterative, and some will run continuously throughout the project.
Things that need to be done at some point:
Costs besides actual entrant vehicle expenses:
There will be a test vehicle and a competition vehicle. These things need to be considered and developed for each:
See the vehicles page for ideas about the competition vehicle and the test vehicle individually.
Team Contributions
Plan updates
Started abstract planning.
Started recruitment efforts.
Signed up for Grand Challenge Competitors’ Conference.
| EDWARD EVERS | Robot Workshop | The DARPA Grand Challenge |
Modified 2005-10-10
Copyright © 2000-2005 Edward Evers webmaster@edwardevers.com