Posted on 10/08/2005 4:04:38 PM PDT by neverdem
PRIMM, Nev., Oct. 8 - Fifteen robotic vehicles sprinted through the Nevada desert Saturday afternoon, closing in on a $2 million prize from the Pentagon meant to spur development of technologies for 21st century automated warfare.
The vehicles were the survivors from an original starting field of 23 teams fielded by alliances of computer, automotive and aerospace companies, university researchers and others.
The competition, called the Grand Challenge, was organized by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, and was designed to tap into the talents of a wide range of researchers and innovators who might not otherwise be found by the nation's military technology firms. Darpa gave birth to the Internet's predecessor, the Arpanet, along with the Predator drone and the stealth fighter.
The second Grand Challenge was run on a new 131.6 mile course, laid out over dusty unpaved roads, mountain passes and flat lake beds north of the gambling town of Primm on the California border.
At the halfway mark on the course, the contest grew tense as five leaders stayed close together, averaging slightly more than 20 miles an hour. There were a number of stalls and a dramatic crash directly in front of an audience viewing area when Alice, created by the California Institute of Technology, plowed into a concrete barrier and then attempted to drive over it.
At the 102-mile mark, Stanley, a Volkswagen from Stanford, took the lead, passing a Hummer outfitted by Carnegie Mellon.
Near the end of the course the robots were set to run through Beer Bottle Pass, which included a cliff with a 100-foot drop. The course also passed through several tunnels where the vehicles would be cut off from satellite navigation signals.
A number of the competitors were repeat entrants, but the start of this year's race...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Twenty-three vehicles will compete on a desert course on Saturday. Unlike the last race, participants believe there will be a winner this year. (The bot in that pic appears to be one of the smaller ones. The bots in their slide show pics appear much larger. The video didn't download for me when I tried.)
> Unlike the last race, participants believe there
> will be a winner this year.
There will be. Three have already finished under the
prize time.
See earlier thread also:
Robotic racers gear up for desert
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1498928/posts
and of course the GC site:
http://www.grandchallenge.org/
Thanks for the ilnks!
Just a bit frightening.
We will have robotic transport vehicles. Remote piloted and autonomous armed aircraft to replace cannon cockers, tankers and pilots. Small remotely operated armed vehicles to replace the grunts.
When this happens, the only Warrior Heroes will be enemy. We will no longer have the excuse to stay away from war that too many Americans will be killed or wounded. The only constraint on engaging in war will be budgetary.
Just a bit frightening
Mayor Nagin
I agree...
Did you ever see that Star Trek episode that involved two planets engaged in interplanetary war? Seems they both agreed that convential weapons were just too uncivilized.
So they used a computer program to simulate weapon deployment and damage...then the "simulated" casualties were notified to show up to a disentagration chamber for disposal.
Moral was war had become too civilized and no horror existed to urge leaders to settle.
I fear that's where we're headed
can you name a war, EVER, which ended because the leaders were forced by horror to seek settlement?
seems to me that every war and large scale conflict since the rise of Rome (at least) ended when one, the other, or all participants lost the logistical capacity and/or command structure required to continue to fight.
Him too.
One of their better anti-war episodes.
You say that like it is a bad thing. Technology is just a tool. And it is a far better alternative than the draft.
Which episode is that? I never saw it.
And it is a far better alternative than the draft.
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