A Grand Challenge: Is it possible to build a vehicle capable of navigating across 200 miles of open desert without any form of human intervention? The Pentagon's research agency has put $1 million on the table for the team that can pass that test in a race on March 13. washingtonpost.com followed employees from ENSCO, a Northern Virginia-based engineering firm, as they built and tested a robotic vehicle to enter in the DARPA race (Pierre Kattar and John Poole, washingtonpost.com)
Gary Carr, the Grand Challenge team leader at Falls Church, Va.-based engineering firm Ensco, said his team plans to begin construction on a new vehicle in the fall. Ensco's entry in the first race -- a modified all-terrain vehicle dubbed "David" -- made it nearly a mile from the starting gate before rolling over on a turn.
Charles Reinholtz, a professor at Virginia Tech who advises the school's team, said senior engineering students will begin developing a new vehicle in the fall.
Reinholtz said the base vehicle for Virginia Tech's next entry "is still an open question." In the March race, the brakes on the school's robot entry locked near the starting gate. That vehicle, based on an industrial utility cart, is now being demonstrated at other competitions and conferences, Reinholtz said.
Some teams participating in DARPA's first Grand Challenge were seeking more than just a chance to win the $1 million prize. Many were using the opportunity to show off their technology to government officials and private sector firms.
Stereo-vision camera technology developed by a California team for the March race may lead to a new business venture for its developers. Dave Hall, leader of Morgan Hill, Calif.-based Team DAD, said he is trying to get into the business of selling stereo camera systems, adding that he expects more than one team in the next Grand Challenge to use one of his products.
Hall said robotic vehicles are still a "dubious business venture." He said, however, that he has talked to automakers, including Ford, about his team's camera technology.
Meanwhile, Ensco's Carr said his company is in the process of bidding on perimeter-inspection contracts that would rely on technology developed as a result of the Grand Challenge, but he did not offer more details.
DARPA's staff has talked with some of the teams from the first Grand Challenge, but to date no contracts have been awarded based on technology showcased at the March event, Negron said. Once concern, according to Negron, is that any deals might disqualify teams from participating in future Grand Challenges.
Negron said organizers are seeing a "snowball effect" in interest in robot vehicles, and that "snowball is getting bigger as it rolls downhill," he said.
