Control Engineering

The Next Step
January 25, 2008

http://www.ivtt.org/default.aspx

THE GATHERING STORM
Some people call it a tipping point, others a turning point, what ever name you use for it the meaning is the same... there is a feeling in the air that something is about change in the world of automated vehicles.  Has the amount of knowledge in this area of technology reached critical mass?  Or do we really have to wait another 10 or 30 years as some people say?  

On Valentine's Day and the day before, a small group of people will be meeting at the NIST - National Institute of Standards and Technology, just outside Washington DC.  This is the Third Joint Military/Civilian Seminar On Intelligent Vehicle Technology Transfer.  Will it prove to be a turning point in the history of automated vehicle technology?  I am going to be there just in case it is and report to you here on what happens.  Dr. Robert Finkelstein, one of the event organizers, says that the history of the government's involvement in developing this technology goes back more than 40 years.  I would say that is probably long enough for a technology to ripen.  Recent developments, such as those demonstrated at the Nov. 3, 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge,  could be interpreted as signs that driverless technology is heating up.  Other less public demonstrations of progress have been going on like the addition of a Velodyne point cloud generator to Army test vehicle CRUSHER.

2007 DARPA URBAN CHALLENGE success story:
Two brothers in the stereo components business heard about the DARPA Grand Challenge and thought that it might be fun to convert a pick-up truck to driverless operation and enter it in the race.  David and Bruce Hall, of Velodyne, could not find a laser scanner for their DARPA Grand Challenge vehicle that did all the things that they wanted it to do, so they built their own.  It broke.  They built a better one, it broke.  They built an even better one and it didn't break, in fact it worked so well that all the other teams wanted one for each of their vehicles too.  So David and Bruce added it to their Velodyne product line for $75,000 each. See Velodyne Lidar: http://www.velodyne.com/lidar/  In the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge it became something of a status symbol to have a Velodyne HDL-64E spinning on top of your vehicle.  When the race ended, 5 of the 6 vehicles that crossed the finish line were using Velodyne HDL-64E's to sensing the environment.  People outside of the autonomous vehicle business have seen what this laser scanner can do and they want them too.  In fact anyone that needs to scan 360 degrees out to 120 meters, and create a million point data cloud every second, wants one.  This latest version weights just 29 lbs., is ruggedized, and is weather proof.  Going into production to meet the demand for their product was this DARPA Grand Challenge team's "next step" after the second race and it looks like it is paying off well for them.  Their product is filling a need in the LIDAR market.

"Busting through underbrush on an Army experimental vehicle named CRUSHER has only resulted in a few scratches that have not affected the units operation"  Mike Dunbar, Manager of Business Development at Velodyne, explained.  He also went on to tell of other harsh treatment and abuse his company's laser scanners have survived in the field on customer's vehicles.  Real world conditions like these prove that the HDL-64E is not a delicate laboratory piece of equipment, but a real world product ready for use.  Ask him what the latest horror stories are that his product has survived, new ones are coming in every day.


Rick Yoder of Velodyne, at the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge, indicating that his company's product scored a touch down. 
In the foreground is one of their units with the cover off to show the hidden mechanism that makes it all work and the robust bearing support.

Look for the Velodyne people and their amazing million point per second data cloud forming machine at these shows that you might already be planning to attend: 

February 2008
ILMF 08 - The International LIDAR Mapping Forum
http://www.lidarmap.org
Booth: 28
Date: February 21-22, 2008
Location: Adam’s Mark, Denver 

April 2008 
ASPRS 2008 Annual Conference
(The American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing)
http://www.asprs.org/portland08/index.html
Booth: 317
Date: April 30 – May 2, 2008
Location: Oregon Convention Center, Portland 

June 2008 
AUVSI - Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International
http://symposium.auvsi.org
Booth: 1921
Date: June 10 – 12, 2008
Location: San Diego Convention Center, San Diego

GO ROBOTS !

Paul F. Grayson - Chief Engineer
AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL MAGIC, LLC
Racing to build technology that saves soldier's lives.
390 4-Mile Rd. S.
Traverse City, MI 49686-8411
(231) 946-0187, (231) 883-4463 Cell
pgrayson@aimagic.org
http://aimagic.org
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/robotcluboftraversecitymi/
http://www.controleng.com/index.asp?layout=blog&blog_id=1180000318

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