1. A 175 mile “race” through the desert
DARPA Grand Challenge
“It shall be a goal of the Armed Forces… that by 2015, one-third of the operational ground combat vehicles of the Armed Forces are unmanned.” (S. 2549, Sec. 217)
A 175 mile “race” through the desert
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2. DARPA Grand Challenge 2005
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3. Description of Challenge
Up to 175 mile route through the desert
Mountainous terrain up / down 2000 ft
Completely autonomous vehicles
For March 2004, 106 teams entered, 25 qualified, 5 made it past the first 100 yds
Best showing: Carnegie 7.4 mi
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4. Best Showings
"Vehicle 22 Red Team (Carnegie Mellon): At mile 7.4, on switchbacks in a mountainous section, vehicle went off course, got caught on a berm and rubber on the front wheels caught fire, which was quickly extinguished. Vehicle was command-disabled.“
"Vehicle 21 SciAutonics II: At mile 6.7, two-thirds of the way up Daggett Ridge, vehicle went into an embankment and became stuck. Vehicle was command-disabled.“
"Vehicle 9 The Golem Group: At mile 5.2, while going up a steep hill, vehicle stopped on the road, in gear and with engine running, but without enough throttle to climb the hill. After trying for 50 minutes, the vehicle was command-disabled."
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5. Sand
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6. Unpaved road
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7. Water
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8. Rocky Road
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9. Rough Terrain
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10. Under Highways
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11. 9/17/2018

12. Summary of the Rules
The vehicle must travel autonomously on the ground in under ten hours.
The vehicle must stay within the course boundaries as defined by a data file provided by DARPA.
The vehicle may use GPS and other public signals.
No control commands may be sent to the vehicle while en route.
The vehicle must not intentionally touch any other competing vehicle. Destructive “behavior” is prohibited.
Tethered subsystems cannot be propelled or maneuvered independently of the ground vehicle.
Vehicles must have minimal environmental impact.
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13. Race Video Footage, 2004
History Channel Special about the “Million Dollar Challenge”
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14. What is our objective? Develop technologies for general use
Invent valuable IP
Build a new high-value company
Promote Indiana technology
Win the $2M prize
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15. Current and Future applications of Autonomous Vehicles
Delivery and disposal of hazardous materials
Military logistics -- transport of materials
Non-military logistics – hospitals, airports, warehouses, manufacturing plants
Airport baggage
Farming and agriculture
Advance ground warfare
People movers
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16. Major Milestones December 15 – Basic autonomous operation
March 11 – Application video and paper
May 2 – DARPA Site visit
September 28 – NQE (National Qualifying Event)
October 8 – 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge
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17. Current Team Members Currently 22 “All Indiana” team members
6 entrepreneurial business owners, some with substantial robotics experience
3 professors with control, robotics, vision experience
4 students
9 engineering/programming professionals
A combined 300+ Years of experience on the team.
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18. Where We Meet on Saturdays
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19. Skills Needed
Vendor survey of available sensors and their capabilities
Evaluate trade offs for a "make / buy" decision and sensor sophistication level
Physical mounting, environmental protection and articulation of sensor (if required)
Software signal conditioning and compensation
Pattern recognition software for terrain, obstacles, landmarks and localization
Sensor integrity analysis software for confidence evaluation
Software interface to navigation controller
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20. Sensor Technologies DGPS - 3D absolute localization and time standard
LADAR - a "cloud of LASER points" with both distance and intensity components
Vision - Passive cameras: stereoscopic, wide angle, color
Odometry - encoders on passive wheels
Inertial - 6DOF motion sensors
Magnetic - 3D field orientation, compass functions and local fields (power lines)
RADAR - Background speed, vehicle following / passing, metal obstacles
Thermal - FLIR thermal imaging
Vibration / Shock - robot health and terrain analysis
Touch - whiskers for "last resort" obstacle detection
Ultrasonic - SONAR for detection of objects transparent to other technologies
Clinometers - gravity based orientation (not inertial)
Helioscope - sun tracking for robot pose and shadow identification
Altimeters - for topographic map rationalization
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21. Software Motion control software (steering, throttle, etc)
Real-time image analysis and feature extraction
Sensor array and fusion software
Navigation control software
Path planning
Obstacle avoidance software
General system architecture
Network communications
Operating system
Fault tolerance
Logical deployment of recovery systems
Mapping technology
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22. Mechanical Technologies
Gyro-stabilized sensor platform
Electrical system, battery backup
Environment controls (A/C, humidity)
Ruggedization
Robot health
E-Stop interface
Vehicle dynamics
Vehicle protection
Recovery systems
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23. Other Required Functions
Development tools
System integration
Testing
Project Management
Cost management
Marketing
Public relations
Web development
Sponsorship recruitment
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24. Jeep Rubicon Chosen, Oct ‘04
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25. 9/17/2018

26. Our Jeep Rubicon
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27. Our Jeep Rubicon
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28. Installing Drive-by-Wire Now!!
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29. Drive-by-Wire
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30. Ways for Purdue to be Involved
Class project(s)
Extra-curricular activity
Faculty research
Other?
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31. LADAR Arrays in Hi-res Dynamic Environment Analysis
Recognize roads, terrain contours, and identify obstacles from an unstable vehicle traveling at 100 kilometers per hour with resolution in the centimeter range
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32. Multi-spectral RADAR for Terrain Profiling
Identify hard and soft terrain features using RADAR at different frequencies to identify hard packed road paths from surrounding ground and rocks from bushes.
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33. SONAR arrays in a High Speed, Unstructured Environment
Wind and speed create difficulties in extracting data from ultrasonic reflections
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34. Using Arrays of GPS Receivers to Circumvent Invalid Positioning
Differential GPS corrects for a subset of positioning errors. An array of GPS receivers may allow faulty data from other error sources to be identified and either ignored or corrected.
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35. Map Matching from Terrain Contours
Fused sensor data of surrounding terrain is used to register against topological and aerial maps for road identification and localization without GPS.
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36. Stabilizing Instrument Platforms on High Speed Land Vehicles
Sensor stabilization may be critical for making sense of sensor data in real-time.
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37. Sensor Fusion for Separating Critical Obstacles from Benign Terrain Features
Develop methods for using inputs from multiple sensors to separate dangerous obstacles such as rocks from easily negotiated terrain features such as shadows or tumbleweeds.
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38. Sensor Fusion for Identifying Roads in an Unstructured Environment
Making best determination of road location with oftentimes conflicting imaging and obstacle-avoidance sensor data.
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39. Strategic Recovery of an Autonomous Vehicle from Indeterminate Situated State
If the vehicle is immobile and sensor data is contradictory, what steps can be taken to “free” the vehicle from its situation and restore sensor effectiveness.
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40. Why Purdue Involvement?
Worthy challenge for top engineering school
Multi-disciplinary approach
University-to-university collaboration
University-to-industry collaboration
Creation of a high-tech start-up
Long-term, ground-breaking research opportunities
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41. More Information Our website is http://IndyRobotics.com
DARPA site is
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42. THANK YOU!!
If you have interest, please contact us!
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43. Mr. Traster is an electrical engineering graduate of the University of Texas at Austin with 30 years of experience in embedded controller design and development, the last ten of which were in robotic applications. He is the inventor of three patents in video display design two of which are licensed for all closed caption televisions. He is also knowledgeable in data communications technology with patents in HDLC channelized T1.
Mr. Traster formed his first company, Varix Corporation, in It was one of the first personal computer based test equipment companies in the world. Varix built a universal PROM and PLD programmer, the first of it's kind to contain device programming algorithms entirely in software.
Mr. Traster's current company, Volant Corporation, was formed in It operates as a turnkey contract developer for a wide range of projects including high speed data communication, automobile diagnostic equipment, channelized T1, database applications, document management, and other embedded controller applications. In the last 15 years, the company has focused primarily on software and electronics for controlling robotic equipment - storage / retrieval systems, semiconductor device handlers and mobile robots.
Mr. Traster volunteers his time for Middle School and High School robotics. For the last three years he has mentored LEGO Mindstorms for the Indianapolis Public Library, provided technical leadership for several FIRST LEGO League teams and provided engineering leadership on a FIRST Robotics team.
Doug Traster
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44. Scott Jones
Scott Jones, inventor of several patents, including telephone-company “Voic ” used by over 500 million people globally, continues to actively build businesses that capitalize on advanced technologies. Founder/Chairman of one of Indiana’s leading VC firms, Gazelle TechVentures, as well as Founder/Chairman of Gracenote (maker of the widely-used Internet music recognition service, CDDB) and Escient (maker of the first hard-disk based music systems for the home), he served as Chairman of the Indiana Technology Partnership, a statewide organization comprised of business, academic, and civic leaders. Graduating from IU in ‘84, he was a research scientist at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab and then founded Boston Technology in ‘86.
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