[tt] Carnegie Mellon and GM's Boss Wins DARPA Urban Challenge - Popular Mechanics

[Brian Atkins]

http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/technology_news/4229973.html

VICTORVILLE, Calif. — The slow-motion finale of the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge 
is at an end. After spending the night tabulating the run-times for the six 
robots that finished the 60-mile course yesterday, and weighing their overall 
speed against potential penalties for moving violations, the officials at DARPA 
have come up with a winner. Tartan Racing, the joint effort from Carnegie Mellon 
University and General Motors, beat out arch-rival Stanford University for the 
$2 million first prize. Stanford took second place, and Virginia Tech's Victor 
Tango team took third, winning $1 million and $500,000 respectively.

Because of the secretive and unabashedly subjective nature of DARPA's 
decision-making process, we may never know exactly why Boss won, or how close 
Stanford's Junior did or didn't come to beating Tartan. Citing the fact that 
this contest was completely unprecedented, DARPA avoided posting a list of 
penalties, and reserved the right to adjust the weight of those penalties after 
the race. But according to Tartan leader William "Red" Whittaker, they won 
because of planning. "Boss didn't hesitate," Whittaker said. "When it came to 
planning—planning at intersections, planning on straightaways, planning 
throughout the course—we were unbeatable." By taking turns without an extra 
pause to get its bearings, and knowing when the coast was clear enough to gun 
the engine up to 30 mph (the max speed for the course), Boss may have shaved 
minutes off its run-time.

So in what most analysts and Challenge participants predicted would be a 
software shoot-out—Boss and Junior use roughly the same type of GPS systems and 
long and short-range radar and LIDAR sensors—Tartan's algorithms appear to have 
come out on top. At least in the context of a race. Even Tartan members admitted 
that Junior looked the most like a human, or better-than-human, driver. Its 
ability to consistently center itself in the lane, for example, was downright 
eerie. But as Tartan members pointed out to me during a qualifying round this 
summer, Boss was never meant to be graceful. It drives like a race-car. It was 
programmed to win. And like a good robot, it followed orders, and won. —Erik Sofge

Update: According to DARPA Director Tony Tether, Boss came in about 20 minutes 
ahead of Stanford. That's less than Tartan was originally expecting, but still a 
pretty sizable lead. The average speed for Boss was clocked at around 14 mph; 
Junior's was approximately 13 mph. And as far as penalties go, DARPA was quietly 
collecting data from a plane circling overhead throughout the event. The 
bird's-eye footage was accurate down to around half a meter, letting officials 
review each "incident report" collected by observers on the ground.

Also, Tether confirmed that MIT was ranked fourth overall, despite a pretty 
hilarious/depressing/hilarious performance.

And when asked exactly why Terramax was pulled from the race, Tether responded, 
"Because it was about ready to knock the building down." Sounds about right.

-- 
Brian Atkins
Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
http://www.singinst.org/