UC Robotics Team Races to Build a Safer, Faster Robot Watch the Trials on McMicken Commons on May 4

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is the central research and development organization for the Department of Defense. DARPA’s stated mission is to “leverage ingenuity and research to develop transformational technologies that give our armed forces a decisive edge.”

For the second DARPA Grand Challenge, autonomous robots must navigate desert terrain with natural and man-made obstacles in less than 10 hours. The course, which will be no more than 175 miles, is revealed two hours before the competition starts. The competition is hot and fierce. Participants are already dropping like flies.

“They have narrowed the field from 195 to 118 teams,” says Hall. “They will now narrow that down to 40 teams that would do the next test next September.” Hall is the Paul E. Geier Professor of Robotics and director of the Center for Robotics Research in the College of Engineering’s Mechanical, Industrial and & Nuclear Engineering Department.

Two project managers from DARPA are coming to the UC campus on Wednesday, May 4, to evaluate the UC robot. The test will take place between 1:30 and 4 p.m. on McMicken Commons. Everyone is invited to come cheer on the “Bearcat Cub.”

The DARPA project managers will be looking at safety and control, says Hall. The robot’s navigation is based on Global Positioning System (GPS). The vehicle will need to autonomously go from one GPS waypoint to another while avoiding five randomly placed obstacles. (A waypoint is a specific GPS spot defined by longitude, latitude and elevation.) UC’s contestant for the Grand Challenge is the Bearcat Cub.

“At 325 pounds, the Bearcat Cub is our smallest and newest and is ready to go,” says Hall. “The older one [the Bearcat Brat] is too slow.” Speed will factor into UC’s success, as DARPA pushes the contestants to go as fast as they can, up to 20 miles an hour.

“If the robot ran away from us that would be the worst thing!” Hall says, laughing. Never fear, the Bearcat Cub is equipped with a remote emergency stop.

"If we pass this test, would still be able to modify to make it more rugged,” says Hall. “We might add an extra gas tank and other features like that.”

UC Robotics Team on Discovery Channel
The Discovery Channel Canada aired a feature this past spring about the DARPA Grand Challenge. (Click here for an archived video clip.) The Discovery Channel Canada segment focuses on a Canadian team but does mention UC as one of two other contenders. (The narrator in the video talks about the “Bearcat Cub,” but the clip actually shows the “Bearcat Brat.”) 

“Our bearcats did make it as one of the three machines aired on the March 3, 2005, show,” says Hall. “For the first time, to my knowledge, the UC Robot Team was on the Discovery Channel in Canada, under ‘DARPA Grand Challenge Take 2.’”

DARPA Grand Challenge Take 2 will not be the first time for Hall’s robotics team. UC took seventh place in the “Autonomous Challenge” at last year’s Annual Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC). They will be competing again this year when the 13th Annual Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition takes place June 11–13 in Traverse City, Mich.

Last year, Virginia Tech won the IGVC Autonomous Challenge and placed in the top three in navigation and design, as well. UC and VT’s robotics teams are no strangers. Two other VT teams came in third and 14th. In 2004, UC placed 16th and 18th in design and eighth in navigation. They have also gone head to head every year since 1996. UC won in 1995 and has consistently placed in the top 10. VT competed at the inaugural DARPA competition. What kind of threat do the Hokies present to the Bearcats? Only time will tell.

Hall greatly appreciates the current and former team members who made these opportunities possible.

“It is a milestone and a preview of how famous you can be if we win the IGVC and then the Grand Challenge,” says Hall. “$2,000,000 is a lot of fame!”

DARPA Grand Challenge ’05

IGVC 13th Annual Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition