By Michael Belfiore November 03. 2007 | 5:04:10 PMCategories: .
Three autonomous vehicles crossed the finish line within the 6-hour time limit here at the DARPA Urban Challenge in Victorville. CA. DARPA director Tony Tether flagged the winning vehicles in as they completed the course two or three minutes apart.
First to finish the 60-mile race full of intersections traffic turns parking challenges and straightaways was Stanford University's VW Passat named. Carnegie Mellon's Chevy Tahoe came next at 1:45 p m. followed two or three minutes later by Virginia Tech's Ford Escape hybrid. .
The bots started the race several minutes apart and they had to complete different missions taking varying times so it's not clear who will take home the $2 million first prize the $1 million second-place prize or the $500,000 third-place prize. Judges will compare notes and score sheets which note any traffic infractions and other demerits and Tether will announce the winners tomorrow morning.
Still on the course are and. The 's Toyota Prius came in just now at 2:50 p m. As I write this. MIT's vehicle is stuck on a section of unpaved road apparently uncertain whether it's safe to move forward.
Even taking into account the race's few unclocked pauses none of which lasted more than a handful of minutes it seems unlikely that Ben Franklin or either of the bots on the course now can be declared a winner given the race's 6-hour time limit. The race started just after 8:00 a m.
It did look for some time as if VT was going to come in first. But then it seemed to have longer sub-missions to complete at the end. Considering the small and inexperienced team of developers I think that VT are the moral winners this year. Much was expected of Stanford Junior as it had such huge backing. Notice how the web-cast commentary became more technically engaging in the last 2 hours with conversations on technique and robot adaption. They really should have sent those chaps on an AI primer before presenting the first 5 hours of drivel-cast.
Although I'm a Carnegie Mellon robotics fan it's nice to see other universities competitive in the robotic field for a change. Kudos to VT and Stanford for their competitive showing considering the legacy that CMU has in the field.
Hooray for Stanfurd! I knew those poncy rich-boy trees could do it. Whenever UC Berkeley is too busy doing grownup stuff who you gonna call? Stanfurd!
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