Control Engineering

Paul Grayson

Team #63 Team Jefferson
October 17, 2007

DO IT YOURSELF GOVERNMENT RESEARCH

Each of the teams is scrambling to raise the money they need.  The activities cover a wide range of fundraising methods: bake sales, garage sales, fundraisers, etc.  Today at AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL MAGIC, we are getting ready for a fundraiser Pizza evening Monday Oct. 22, 2007 at G's Pizza in Traverse City.   We are calling it the EAT PIZZA, SAVE SOLDIERS LIVES, BRING JOBS TO MICHIGAN event.   From 5 pm to 9 pm, the AIM Racing team will be cleaning tables, taking orders and serving food at G's Pizza.  The G brothers have taken an interest in helping raise money to send team members Linda and Tom Graham to the DARPA Urban Challenge - and bring attention to their recently opened Traverse City location.  The team will get 10% of the gross plus tips.  We will be wearing the team colors - Red shirt with embroidered AIM Team patch and black trousers.  Team flag patterned hats will be optional.  Promoting this event locally is a great excuse for us to meet our neighbors, hand out flyers (about 2,000 of them) that promote the DARPA Urban Challenge race, the AIM Racing Team and G's Pizza. 

This evening I walked for about an hour in the suburban neighborhood where the AIM workshop is located and with great hopes put a 1/4th page bright yellow invitation into the newspaper slot of our neighbors' mailboxes and plan to do that each night until I run out of flyers. Will the invitations blow away?  Will anyone read them?  Will anyone come to the Pizza night fundraiser?  We will find out Monday night.

MICHIGAN 50 out of 50.

Currently the discussion among the people I work with at my day job, the Crown Golf Course, is about the news that Michigan has the highest unemployment rate of all the USA.  How does that affect fundraising?  How does that affect recruiting volunteers?  The local news says that volunteerism and donations are down because the people who normally do the bulk of this are now working two low paying jobs just to pay their bills.  Estimates here at AIM are that the US armed forces, overall, will need about one million driverless systems between now and before 2015 - the next six years.  How do we bring some of those high paying jobs to Michigan?  Several people have asked AIM to modify their cars for driverless operation.  Perhaps this will be the new cottage industry for Michigan and the AIM Urban Challenge team.

Team #63 on my list is Team Jefferson.



Charlottesville, Virginia based Team Jefferson was one of the thirty-six teams selected to advance without receiving one of the million dollar development grants offered by DARPA.   The team, consisting of members from Perrone Robotics, Inc, a Virginia-based robotics software company, and the University of Virginia Engineering School, is readying its vehicle, “Tommy Junior”, for the elimination trials which will take place at the Urban Warfare Training Center in Victorville, California beginning October 26th. The field of contestants will be narrowed to 20 finalists who will then compete in rally style race through 60 miles of city traffic in the mock city on November 3, 2007.
 
The team's secret weapons include a cadre of relentless scientists and engineers from PRI and UVa, and PRI’s patent pending ‘MAX’ robotics software platform which runs on Sun Microsystems’ Java. MAX represents the DNA and core robotics operating system that enables the rapid drop-in of commercially available and affordable hardware.  

The team's after-market drop-in approach enables rapid conversion of any vehicle to fully autonomous operation.  Part of the team’s mission and philosophy is to demonstrate that this type of complex engineering problem can be solved inexpensively using open systems and configurable software frameworks. 

Tommy Junior's cost has been a less than$50,000 in hardware, which includes its stock Scion xB automotive platform, and a few man-years of software development. After the hardware was dropped in, Tommy Junior was imbued with fully autonomous navigation and obstacle avoidance capabilities in just 24 hours of MAX configuration.“Driverless robotic cars shouldn’t cost ten million or even one million dollars,” says team lead Paul Perrone.  

While competing teams are spending 10 to 100 times the amount that Team Jefferson is spending, the team’s robot, Tommy Junior, is keeping pace with those other teams. Perrone further explains, "Over 100 people die on our roads and highways every day due to distractions and inattention while driving. The autonomous vehicle doesn't have to worry about changing the radio station or talking on the phone. If we can keep the costs to develop low, then we know we are proving the commercial applicability of the technology.  Faster, cheaper, better: that's our mantra."



The earlier DARPA Challenges, set in the Mojave Desert, were simpler, without the complications of moving automobiles and without the need to comply with traffic laws. While DARPA's interest is in military use of this technology, many DARPA-developed technologies have moved into civilian applications. The best known is the Internet, which was developed by DARPA in the late60’s.

Watch for Team Jefferson's Tommy Jr. and its clones beside you in traffic.

Stay tuned for the latest developments in this highly competitive and historic DARPA Challenge.

GO ROBOTS !

Posted by Paul Grayson on October 17, 2007 | Comments (0)