DARPA’S ROBOT ROAD RACE OFF-​​TRACK

One of Darpa’s slick­est PR moves in years was to spon­sor a robotic road race from Los Angeles to Las Vegas — with a mil­lion bucks in cash going to the win­ner.
But now, there’s trou­ble brew­ing for Darpa’s “Grand Challenge”, four months before it’s slated to begin. Over 100 teams have signed up to take part in the race. But, in a sur­prise announce­ment, Darpa is say­ing that all but 20 of them won’t be allowed to ride.
“There are fac­tors beyond DARPA’s con­trol that limit the num­ber of vehi­cles that can par­tic­i­pate in the Los Angeles to Las Vegas event,” the race’s pro­gram man­ager, Col. Jose A. Negron, writes in a let­ter to rac­ers. “The need to com­ply with envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tions, ensure the safety of the par­tic­i­pants and spec­ta­tors, and com­plete the event within the num­ber of avail­able day­light hours limit what can be accom­plished in one day. Given these con­straints, our analy­sis leads us to believe that only 20 vehi­cles can be allowed to run the Grand Challenge route.“
How will the 20 teams be picked? By who spent the most? By who’s got the fastest robot car? The let­ter doesn’t say.
(via Robots​.net)

October 30th, 2003 | Drones | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.