Control Engineering

Paul Grayson

AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL MAGIC's Robocar, AGV WENDY DARLING 7-12-2008

On Discovery's Science Channel, Robocars Episode 1 of 6, TV-G, aired this evening.  They will be airing one episode all week, each week for 4 weeks.  Here in the Traverse City area it is cable channel 127 at 10 pm.  This 6 part series follows a handful of the DARPA teams from their early formation through the development of their driverless robocars to the final competition in Victorville CA, Nov. 3, 2007.    I am looking forward to getting the DVD for my collection of DARPA Challenge memorabilia when it goes on sale, some time after the program has aired. 

ROBOCARS
November 3, 2007 twenty vehicles navigated through a mock city, merging at traffic circles, passing disabled vehicles, avoiding cinder blocks – driving scenarios difficult for most people.  But this urban obstacle course wasn’t for inteneded to test human driving ability.  The competitors for the $3.5 million in cash prizes in this competition were robots – autonomous, unmanned cars using data from GPS, lasers, and video cameras processed on laptops to drive the course. This Science Channel series examines the pioneers of unmanned driving who are being watched closely by the greatest minds and deepest pockets of the robotics world; these vehicles are the pioneers of unmanned driving.

RoboCar – Episode 1
The US Congress wants to save soldier’s lives by replacing them on routine transport missions in war zones with autonomous vehicles. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) hopes to move existing technology forward by sponsoring a robot car competition. In the first episode of the series, you will meet ten competitors that run the gamut – from a defense contractor to a software start-up to a prestigious university engineering program. Episode 1 goes in-depth to follow four of them, Stanford Racing, Tartan Racing from Carnegie Mellon University, Team Jefferson and The Golem Group, as they struggle to perfect their designs in the months that lead up to the race. Called the “Urban Challenge”, the competition will require robot cars to do things that have never before attempted – drive in a city while interacting with other robocars and human (stunt driver) driven cars. Teams face technical and financial hurdles – one of which is the stressful “site visit” by DARPA officials that determine whether or not they will qualify for the race.

AGV WENDY DARLING
Above is the latest picture of Team AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL MAGIC's DARPA Urban Challenge truck, AGV WENDY DARLING, on its way to be in the Traverse City Cherry Festival Parade 7/12/2008. As you know with experimental stuff it does not always perform on cue, this is a picture just after I put the small engine fire out and am waiting for the overheated engine to cool off for the limp back to the shop. We were about half way to the parade staging area when I had to pull the truck off into the Kurtz Piano store's parking lot. Luckily it was not a fuel leak onto the exhaust manifold as I first suspected.   Instead it was gasket sealer that had been dripped onto the manifold during one of the earlier maintenance operations and finally got hot enough to ignite.  There were little orange flames about six inches tall dancing along the side of the engine. The fan belt gave up about the same time from age. No fan belts that now uncommon size were available in town and with the vehicle needing to be re-inspected in the shop, going on to the parade was out of the question.   The best we can hope for is to be ready for the next event on our exhibition schedule.

Luckily no damage was done by the fire and I had the fire out by the time the fire department got there. There is now an emergency fuel shut off valve under the drivers side of the cab, accessible from outside. That cost about $15 and was the first thing I installed after we got the truck back to the shop.  The vehicle will need a careful inspection in the shop to determine if any other damage has been done on the run to Kurtz Piano Store and back.  We set several new records for the truck on that run.  Highest highway speed, farthest distance traveled to date, and an interesting first for our test runs that one of the team members pointed out: first time returning to the shop under its own power.  Running antique equipment is not my first choice but is a practical move to fit our budget - currently we are working on about $500 cash per month and lots of volunteer hours. The NAPA dealer, Bramer auto supply, is one of our sponsors, they are giving us a price break on the parts we buy from them so the belt, which retails for $55 will cost us $21.25   Later we will consider changing the pulleys so that we can use the industrial standard $9 belt. With each modification I have had to make, I have moved toward the less expensive industrial standard. For example, the headlights which used to be 24 VDC are now the 12 VDC version, so if we need one on the road we can get it at any auto parts store across the USA. We are discovering and including in our design this and other simmilar cost saving ideas.



GOOGLE LUNAR X-PRIZE
Some interesting progress has been made by the teams lining up for the attempt at the Google Lunar X-Prize millions. Here is the link to their web page. I will be writing more about what is going on there when some of the adrenalin rush of dealing with the Cherry Festival Parade run and its aftermath starts to wear off.  

GO ROBOTS !

Paul F. Grayson - Chief Engineer
AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL MAGIC, LLC
Racing to build technology that saves lives.
390 4-Mile Rd. S.
Traverse City, MI 49686-8411
(231) 946-0187, (231) 883-4463 Cell
pgrayson@aimagic.org  
AIM: http://aimagic.org 
Robot Club: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/robotcluboftraversecitymi/ 
CE Magazine: http://www.controleng.com/blog/1180000318.html 

Industries: Machine Control