Control Engineering

Paul Grayson

Team #04 Austin Robot Technology
July 4, 2007

Proving that a US Army vehicle can drive itself safely from the supply depot to where the troops are and back is an urgent task. Considering the number of lives that a system like this can save, working on it, reporting about it, and helping move the teams ahead should be a high priority on everyone's list.  

While it was very hot here this 4th of July it is not nearly as hot as the 110^oF to 140^oF being reported in Iraq.  These temperatures are important to consider them when designing the Army AutoPilot. 

Team #04 on my list is Austin Robot Technology (A. R. T.).  While this not one of the "golden teams" that got one of the million dollar development grants presented by DARPA they were in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge.  As you might expect, with $3.5 million dollars in prize money up for grabs progress on their current vehicle is mostly secret.  The technical paper from their 2005 attempt is available and goes into great detail about how their vehicle worked then.


What appears to be luggage on top of the car is a spinning laser range finder.

MARVIN is the name of Austin Robot Technology's $250,000 Isuzu SUV that they are preparing for the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge.  Their local Austin Isuzu dealer is supplying most of the team's financial support.  Materials and technical support are being provided by a dozen other sponsors and contributors.  MARVIN is a joint venture between Austin Robot Technology Inc. and The University of Texas at Austin.

A. R. T. states the 2007 mission simply as: "60 miles, 6 hrs in traffic.  No Driver."  You can't get much simpler than that.  Accomplishing that mission is going to be a bit more complex.   MARVIN is using a well crafted blend of video, laser, GPS and clever software to work its way through each of the driving situations it is expected to encounter - three point turns, parking, four way stops, traffic circles (roundabouts), merging, etc.

Automation of MARVIN required tapping into the basic four man-machine interfaces: steering, throttle, transmission and brakes to make create a machine-machine interface or drive-by-wire.   From there higher levels of function were added with the anti-collision functions able to interrupt or override other functions. 

Other functions necessary are navigating the digital map of the operating area which will be given to the teams a few days before the race.  The rally style race will be broken up into several "missionss" with a pit stop at the end of each where pit crews can do limited servicing of the vehicles and load the next "mission" from a USB 2.0 thumb drive given to the pit crew by the DARPA race officials.  

When given its next "mission" or race segment, MARVIN needs to route itself through the series of numbered way points taking the most efficient route.   Dynamic rerouting is required as part of this because the teams have been warned by the race officials that road blocks will be set up using highway divider like K-Rail.  When the vehicle finds its route unpassable it needs to find an alternate route on its own.

MARVIN uses GPS to create its position plot point and direction-speed vector.

Posted by Paul Grayson on July 4, 2007 | Comments (0)