Robots ready for rumble in the desert

Last year’s semifinals were disappointing. Only seven entrants completed a flat, 1.4-mile obstacle course. Even so, organizers let 15 vehicles compete in the finals.

One of the favorites again this year is the Red Team from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, led by robotics professor William “Red” Whittaker.

During last year’s finals, Carnegie Mellon’s converted Humvee, nicknamed Sandstorm, traveled the farthest — all of 7½ miles — before breaking down. This year, the school entered two robots — an improved Sandstorm and a converted Hummer named H1ghlander.

The Carnegie Mellon team already has subjected both vehicles to extreme off-roading and hairpin driving in the desert outside Carson City, Nev.

“I’m so hungry for race day,” Whittaker said.

Among the newcomers: the Stanford Racing Team, whose modified Volkswagen Touareg, Stanley, recently drove 200 miles without interruption or human help in the Arizona desert.

Team leader Sebastian Thrun, a computer science professor at Stanford University, declined to reveal how long the journey took.

“That’s our best kept secret,” he said.

The autonomous robotic vehicles use “drive-by-wire” technology, in which on-board computers control steering, braking and other movement. As a result, many of the mechanical linkages to the engine are absent.

The vehicles also have sensors that pinpoint their location and determine whether obstacles lie ahead. The sensors feed data to computers that, with the help of a three-dimensional camera, let vehicles distinguish a boulder from a tumbleweed and calculate whether a chasm is too deep to cross.

Participants generally agree that the sturdier the vehicle, the better it can handle curves and maneuver rocky terrain. But the secret weapon, many say, is each robot’s computer brain. It must have all the right algorithms and programming to gather information, plot its path and change course to avoid danger.

DARPA’s Tether said this year’s selection process was rigorous. Nearly 200 participants from 37 states and three foreign countries applied — double that of last year.

Unlike last year, teams had to send in a video showcasing their robot’s abilities and a crew of judges then fanned across the United States and Canada to check them in action.

The course will not be revealed until two hours before the start time, when DARPA will give contestants a CD-ROM with GPS coordinates that chart the exact route.

If a winner crosses the finish line, Tether said, DARPA will probably not sponsor the same race next year. That would be “anticlimactic,” he said.

But if no one wins this year, the stakes will be raised again, to $4 million.

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