(Bluefield)—Amid many months of intensive, multilayered preparation, “Scorpion-fox,” the autonomous ground vehicle developed through a partnership involving the Center for Applied Research & Technology (CART) at Bluefield State College, has advanced to the site visit stage, prior to October’s 150-mile race across the Mojave Desert.
“Team CART” officials were notified earlier this month that they have satisfied requirements at the latest stage of qualifying. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) evaluators will visit the team next month. CART and Dwaine Jungen, president of Preferred Chassis Fabrication, have collaborated for more than eight months in developing an autonomous (unmanned) robotic vehicle capable of navigating the rugged desert terrain by combining the capabilities of a rugged, versatile chassis with the technology to react appropriately to environmental and terrain challenges.
In March, a five-minute video detailing and depicting the development of Scorpion-fox, was submitted to DARPA as a requirement for advancing to the site visit stage of qualifying. Dean and Nina Gates of Cedar Valley Film, Inc. in Lebanon, VA worked primarily with Sean Harris (Harris Productions) from Gray TN to produce our video.
Team CART is now one of only 118 teams (out of an original field of more than 220 teams and more than 800 participants at DARPA’s kickoff meeting) to advance to the site visit round. The site visits are an essential element of the qualification process for the Grand Challenge and will enable a realistic assessment of a vehicle’s potential to complete the event’s demanding course. Plans call for Team CART to deliver to Jungen’s headquarters in Tucson, AZ the technology package it has developed at BSC, uniting the brains and brawn of the vehicle and continuing pre-site visit testing. The tentative date for the site visit is May 5.
“We’ve reached another milestone in our DARPA Grand Challenge effort,” noted CART director Bruce Mutter. “While we have some work remaining, we’re still very much ‘in the mix.’ We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished and we look forward to the opportunity to compete against many other nationally recognized corporate and academic entries in the event.”
DARPA Grand Challenge 2005 is a field test of autonomous ground vehicles for the purpose of advancing autonomous vehicle technology. The vehicles must travel about 150 miles over rugged desert roads, using only onboard sensors and navigation equipment to find and follow the route and avoid obstacles. DARPA will award $2 million to the team whose autonomous vehicle completes the 2005 route the fastest, within a ten-hour time period. All teams are developing their vehicles without federal government funding.
April 11, 2005
 |
 |
 |
|||
 |
|
|
|
|
|