Friday, November 02, 2007

DARPA Urban Challenge

So some of you may have heard about the DARPA challenge in the past. Basically it's a government funded competition for AI and Robotically driven cars to drive a pre-determined course.

In the early days robotic cars were terrible, they held these things in the middle of the desert and cars would just suddenly lose 'direction' and drive off until someone flicked the 'master kill switch' or similar.

Over the past few years these things are getting better and better, basically to the point that they were driving almost at human speeds. I saw a documentary on the processing power of one of last years cars and it's astounding how remarkable these cars are.

The eventual winner last year drove 120kilometers and finished the entire course without incident.......which is why this year DARPA decided to shake it up again.

This year the terrain is "Urban".

So they've taken the cars out of the desert and put them into a regular road/building setting and this Saturday is the event.

Cant wait to see the outcome.

There are a ton of press outlets covering the event but one of the best you might like to check out is http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/34594/123

BTW there is a worlds first video here; http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/34618/113
First robotic driven car ever to hit a human :)

Ahh in 20 years from now we'll all look back and think this was cute.


Cheers,
Dean

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