The DARPA

and

The OSU team !

TerraMax

A challenge in robotics, transportation and autonomous systems

DARPA intends to conduct a challenge for autonomous ground vehicles: a race between Los Angeles and Las Vegas on March 13, 2004.

See:

http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/

The DARPA Grand Challenge:

• Totally autonomous vehicle• DARPA following (helicopters, etc.) with

“big red button”• About 250 miles on and off-road• 10 hrs (maximum)• 1000 or more way-pts with boundaries to

be given 2 hrs before race• $1,000,000 prize

• A lot of PR!

Barstow to Las Vegas……

Needed:

• Sturdy, big competition vehicle with good suspension

• Drive-by-wire technology for competition vehicle

• Stable instrument platform• GPS, maps and various sensors• Computers• Software• Algorithms

Our Partners and Supporters:

• Oshkosh Truck Company• Univ. of Parma (Italy)

• TRC• Bendix• Bosch• OSU-Honda Partnership• TRC• Raytheon

Project is underway

•106 teams applied!•We have been selected to be among the 19 teams to come to the inspection and trials before the race (the QID).•6 more teams were selected after site visits, for a total of 25 to come to the QID at the California Raceway.

Project personnel – OSU team

• Project Management and Design: Prof. Umit Ozguner• System Integration: Dr. Keith Redmill• Mapping and Path Planning: Dr. Charles Toth

Varuna DilipZaher KassasYongjie Zhu

• High Level Control: Qi ChenKutay Icoz

• Low Level Control: Hai YuRong Xu

• Sensing and Sensor Fusion: Dr. Zhiyu XiangAndy ChienMark SodaShokouh Shafiei

Checking out vehicles at Oshkosh…..

Working on maps…..

Path planning:

Given the way-points, our software is to generate a path for TerraMax to follow.

Surround Sensing

LADAR

Camera

Radar

SonarSurround sensing is accomplished with LADAR’s, radars, cameras and sonars.

The simulator

Note the planned path and adjustments

due to surround sensing.

Sensors are first being tested on a separate, autonomous vehicle:

The Desert Buckeye

TRC off-road track (near Marysville Ohio.)

Not quite California/Nevada !

TerraMax arrives!

Break-by-wire system hardware installed on TerraMax

Location of the three front-looking cameras being tested.

Data Acquisition in Italy

• A test vehicle has been equipped with color stereo cameras

Testing

• Some scenes from Italy