UF robot car, though not a winner, turns in exciting performance

October 10, 2005

PRIMM, Nev. — A University of Florida-built robot car drove at least 23 miles in a $2 million race across the desert Saturday before turning off a road and stopping for unknown reasons.

NaviGATOR, a 4,300-pound fully robotic off-road vehicle built by UF and two corporate team members, traveled more than 20 times the distance of the car that UF entered in last year’s race, called the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, Grand Challenge. However, the car ultimately ranked 18th among 23 finalists in total distance traveled in the 131.6-mile race across the desert near this small city on the California-Nevada border.

Stanford University’s converted Volkwagen sport utility vehicle named Stanley was declared the race winner on Sunday. It completed the course in 6 hours, 53 minutes and 58 seconds.

“I’m disappointed to some extent. I know we could have gone farther,” said Dave Armstrong, project manager for Team CIMAR, the UF Center for Intelligent Machines and Robotics group that built the car. “I feel like, if we had another couple weeks of testing in the desert, I feel like we could have finished it.”

The UF car’s demise, which occurred just before 12:30 p.m., capped a dramatic morning that began at 3:30 a.m. when team members backed NaviGATOR out of its trailer and began final preparations for the race.

DARPA kept the route a closely guarded secret, giving teams CD-Roms containing latitude and longitude coordinates only hours before the race.

Team CIMAR, scheduled as the 18th car out of the chute, received its CD-Rom shortly after 5 a.m. That set off a blur of activity in the team’s trailer as members sought to plan the NaviGATOR’s path and speeds using several laptops.

Contrary to expectations, the course looped and doubled back on itself, looking more like a child’s scribble than a traditional race course.

“It looks insane,” said Carl Crane, team leader and UF professor of mechanical engineering.

The team used software that depicted the terrain in three-dimensional images to plot the
route, slowing NaviGATOR in a mountain pass and other tricky sections and accelerating it on
straightaways.

There was no advance knowledge of potential obstacles, which were said to include three tank traps and other hazards. Like other competitors, NaviGATOR was equipped with sensors and computers designed to help it see and avoid those potential race-enders. In NaviGATOR’s case, that equipment included 10 mainframe computers, three laser range scanners and two global positioning or GPS units.

At one point in the planning, Armstrong had the scheduled trip down to eight hours, 18 minutes, well within the 10-hour window. That would require NaviGATOR to reach speeds of 24 mph in some areas, exceeding the car’s reliable speeds but also giving it the best chance to win, he said. That high speed may have contributed to the car’s problems, but Armstrong said later he made the right decision.

“We could have gone 16 mph the whole way and maybe we would have finished it, but I didn’t want to go to the line knowing we weren’t going to win,” he said.

Carnegie Mellon University’s “Red Team Too” was the first across the line at 6:40 a.m. with Highlander, one of two enormous red vehicles entered by the university. Hundreds of people in bleachers cheered as the Humvee-like vehicle made its way across a dirt field, turned and headed out into the desert, followed by a DARPA chase vehicle. Other cars, each tailed by a chase truck equipped with a kill switch, followed in regular intervals.

Shortly after 9 a.m., UF doctoral student Danny Kent led team members and several visiting family members in the stands in the Gator fight song. NaviGATOR launched at 9:10 a.m., making a flawless exit into the desert.

“We did everything we could. She’s as good as she’s going to get,” said Steve Velat, the team’s only undergraduate member.

The course required the cars to loop around and traverse a road by a nearby embankment, and Team CIMAR members headed over to await NaviGATOR’s return. As they waited, the California Institute of Technology’s van, launched just before NaviGATOR, drove along the road and then suddenly made a right-hand turn into a concrete barrier. The van knocked the barrier over and began climbing the embankment toward an area set aside for media observers, stopping just a few feet short of a chain link fence and assembled reporters and photographers.

Race officials paused NaviGATOR and the other cars in the race until the van was towed off. NaviGATOR then roared past the embankment and headed out into the desert again. After following the road for awhile, it stopped and did a couple of nerve-wracking loops in the dirt before returning to the road – much to team members’ delight.

NaviGATOR next flawlessly traversed a bridge over a railroad track, disappearing from sight at about 10:30 a.m. Everyone headed over to an enormous tent where contestants monitored the race on flat-screen televisions. At about 10:45, race members got a call that NaviGATOR had run about 10 feet off the road and was stalled in front of a bush.

Although the car managed to get back on the road, it traveled only a short distance in the next hour and a half before stopping for good.

Team members said they anticipated the car’s computers would reveal the cause of its problems. Whatever the case, they said were glad they had been a part of the project — not the least because it would form the backbone for several doctoral dissertations.

“Where else do you find a lab like this?” said mechanical engineering student Bob Touchton. “For all of the students, involved, this is like night and day with what we could have contrived in a laboratory.”