Darpa: What is DARPA?

Automotive Guide What is DARPA?

By: Anita Loomba

Automotive Guide

I first came across this acronym while reading Intel’s CTO, Justin Rattner’s blog on Zdnet, and at first I was only interested in finding out more about this racecar challenge, but it took me by surprise when I learnt that DARPA actually stands for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and is a development and research organization for the Department of Defense (DoD). Their mission is to, “leverage ingenuity and research to develop transformational technologies that give our armed forces a decisive edge.” And thus, through congressional and DoD responses, the DARPA grand challenge was created.

The DARPA grand challenge is actually a field test (and technological challenge) and is meant to hasten research and development in independent robotic ground vehicles which will in turn be used to help American lives in the battlefield. This Challenge makes an effort to draw attention to technical issues connected with vehicles, and of course to innovate performance of those vehicles.

Previous DARPA Challenges
The Grand challenge that took place in 2004 consisted of a 200-mile route from California to Nevada that covered different types of obstacles and terrain types ranging from brushland to sand to erosion gullies, and anyone who was able to surpass that, could potentially win $1 million. Unfortunately, that prize was left untaken, because none of the contestants were able to make it to the end.

The 2005 Grand Challenge consisted of a grueling 132 mile course in the Mojave desert and the Stanford racing team from California took away the $2 million prize with a winning time of 6 hours and 53 mins (total allowed time was 10 hours). Their vehicle, Stanley, was equipped with a custom drive-by-wire system, a sensor rack, a computing system, and was designed to drive through desert terrain without any human intervention. For more information about their vehicle, read their technical paper.

For the 2006 Grand Challenge, the DARPA will award prizes for top three contestants, who must safely complete a 60-mile urban area course in the timeframe of six hours. According to the press release, “To succeed, vehicles must autonomously obey traffic laws while merging into moving traffic, navigating traffic circles, negotiating busy intersections and avoiding obstacles.”

As DARPA states, “Successful operation in this environment will bring autonomous ground vehicle technology one step closer to practical realization.” – Thumbs up for technology!

For information about DARPA visit: http://www.darpa.mil
To read Intel’s CTO interest in DARPA, visit: http://blogs.zdnet.com/OverTheHorizon

Automotive Guide Tag : DARPA   Justin Rattner   Department Of Defense

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