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DARPA used various criteria to determine the winner, looking at how quickly the robots completed the course and how many traffic violations they endured. The organization collected this data from the vehicles and by watching the robots from the sky with an airplane. That plane sent back video with up to .5m resolution of the event, allowing officials to replay incidents in slow motion as needed to determine who was at fault.
Still, some of the criteria seemed iffy. For example, vehicles were punished if they were caught in traffic caused by another vehicle, since that would replicate real life circumstances. We saw Stanford's car Junior suffer as Cornell delayed for 10 to 20 minutes.
Weird Victorville drink called Chelada. Beer and Clamato - Ew.
DARPA officials revealed the winners during a ceremony today here in Victorville, California - a small town outside of Los Angeles.
Will there be another Grand Challenge? Maybe not. The government has taken away DARPA's ability to offer cash prizes for these types of events without federal approval.
"I don't know why they did it, but they did it," DARPA Director Anthony Tether said. "I don't have the authority to say, 'Yes'.
"We never really finish anything (at DARPA). We just show that it can be done. We take the excuse off the table. I think we are close to that point. "
Red Whittaker has called for something like a 24-hour race that force the vehicles to deal with different terrains, weather and day/night conditions.
According to Thrun, these events prove crucial to US technology development. They help encourage youngsters' interest in robotics.
"We are going to build a whole new student force for the next thirty years to come." ®
Register editor Ashlee Vance has just pumped out a new book that's a guide to Silicon Valley. The book starts with the electronics pioneers present in the Bay Area in the early 20th century and marches up to today's heavies. Want to know where Gordon Moore eats Chinese food, how unions affected the rise of microprocessors or how Fairchild Semiconductor got its start? This is the book for you - available at Amazon US here or in the UK here.
COMMENTS
@Keith and Curtis
Fair comment from Curtis, but Keith does have something of a point.
Fact is, the first generation of just about everything is rubbish.
Consider the first conventional cars, or steam locomotives before Stephenson got most (not all) of the bugs out. Or the Baird television system. Or even the humble plough; pulled by people, it meant a couple of millenia of backbreaking work until a decent ox, then horse, harness was added.
We seem to improve things rather more quickly these days, and viable autonomous vehicles will probably be with us quite soon, at least for the military.
If that bothers you, just remember what Arnie did to the robot cabbie in 'Total Recall' 8-)
@The current robot cars are rubbish
He who can does, and he who can't, criticizes.
The current robot cars are rubbish
Since the introduction of Twat Nav we are seeing more taxis with little screens in them. The drivers have no idea where they are going and just enter the destination - happy to know that their customers will be delivered quickly and safely.
Trouble is that they rely on the Twat Nav and end up in all sorts of odd places piloted by a clueless driver.
The black cabs without little screens but a large interactive local mapping database are still superior as the cabbie has done the knowledge and can leave the cab to auto-pilot while entertaining the fare with anecdotes about cameras, immigrants and how Jeremy Clarkson is just misunderstood.
No-one had yet appeared to mention another use for robotcabs -- call a cab and get it to deliver a parcel to a destination. Both the parcel and cab can use the same GPS info and the parcel does a big atishoo* at exactly the right place.
*see Robert Rankin's 'Snuff Fiction'
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