Preparing for DARPA's urban road challenge

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Before the race, contestants will download mission data files, which specify checkpoints on a map to complete a given mission. (Every contestant will likely get different checkpoints.) The object is to execute the mission files within the set time--60 miles in six hours or better.

"My guess is the first year, nobody will do it. The second year several people will do it easily," said Traster, whose team is not competing this year. Indy Robotics didn't qualify in the 2005 race.

Yakes' team has built an entirely new robot for the 2007 race (also called TerraMax). It's a military-grade vehicle, but smaller than 2005's six-wheeled truck. Now it's a 4-by-4, modified with rear-steering capabilities and a shorter wheel base for "better dynamic capability in an urban environment," according to the team. The team also used similar sensor technology but developed new autonomous software.

With two years between races, the team said it now has the luxury of more time to fashion its new, improved TerraMax, without taking any shortcuts. "We've learned that the robustness of the design is critical, whether software or hardware," said. That means building an autonomous vehicle that can withstand the wear and tear of 20 years in the military--the specified objective for these vehicles.

In that vein, Oshkosh is working on the project as a means of business. "We're focused on it from a soldier-safety standpoint, improving the safety of soldiers and Marines," said John Beck, senior auto project engineer at Team Oshkosh. "Winning a race is secondary."

"It's an interesting challenge, to be able to accomplish it will be a major milestone in this technology," Beck said.

The vehicle is still undergoing changes but Team Oshkosh plans to begin testing it in the Nevada desert in the coming weeks and will continue running it until the race on November 3. (DARPA has yet to specify the location of the race, saying only that it will be somewhere in the Southwest.)

Of course, most of the challenge competitors require a team effort, and TerraMax is no exception. TerraMax has a core team of several dozen people working on the project at OshKosh Truck, but that team can grow larger on any given task. As team lead, Oshkosh handles hardware and software, including systems integration, drive-by wire technology, modeling and simulation and overall design.

The University of Parma, Italy, supplies the team with its vision system, and Teledyne Scientific equips the vehicle with its sensor guidance system. A team from Auburn University handles integration of TerraMax's global positioning system and IBEO Automobile Sensor supplies a customized Lidar system, which detects surrounding range and distance to other objects.

If TerraMax's history is an indication, the team could have a real chance in 2007.

In the qualification trials for the 2005 race, Traster remembers how the giant truck charged toward a narrow gate everyone doubted it could pass. TerraMax stopped a few inches short of the gate, and sat there for 5 or 10 seconds before backing up to correct itself.

"That little bugger must have backed up 20 times until it went through this little gate with 6 inches on either side. That was amazing," he said.