October 4, 2007 11:08 AM PDT
The surprise contestant in the 2005 Grand Challenge was the Gray Team, renamed Team Gray for the urban race. Its "Kat 5" robot was the fourth finalist in the challenge, finishing the race in 7 hours and 30 minutes at an average speed of 17.5 mph.
It's back this year with Plan B, the successor to Kat-5, a modified Ford Escape hybrid with solar panels on top that serve as alternate power for the car. It uses much of the technology developed for Kat-5 for the 2005 Grand Challenge, but the team has built new software and methods of data acquisition for Plan B.
Team Gray is privately funded by Louisiana-based Gray Insurance, whose computer department, along with students from Tulane University, worked on Kat-5 in 2005. The family behind Gray Insurance read about the 2005 race in Popular Science and wanted to contribute to national security by developing competitive technology.
Photo by Team Gray
