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Raytheon Missile Systems Engineering Report: On May 1, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced plans to hold its Grand Urban Challenge on November 3, 2007. This competition will showcase autonomous ground vehicles carrying out simulated military missions safely and effectively in a mock urban environment.
This is DARPA’s third grand challenge. The first two showed that autonomous vehicles can travel substantial distances over rough terrain and reach their destinations.
Now DARPA wants to see if vehicles with robotics, advanced soft ware, and guidance, navigation and control capabilities can operate successfully within city infrastructures.
This contest’s purpose is to ensure the widest possible public participation in accelerating autonomous urban military vehicle development. Competition requirements include safe operation in traffic, which is essential to U.S. military plans. To succeed, vehicles must autonomously travel a 60-mile course obeying all traffic laws, including merging into moving traffic, navigating traffic circles, negotiating busy intersections and avoiding obstacles. Prizes are $2 million for first place, $500,000 for second, and $250,000 for third.
RMS plans to enter this competition by forming Team Scorpion, which includes two local companies—Tucson Embedded Systems (TES) and Preferred Chassis Fabrication. “Team formation began when Preferred Chassis, which had worked with a university on the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge, contacted TES,” RMS Urban Grand Challenge Program Manager Russell Mikesell stated. “The vehicle had performed well in 2005, but the software had not.”
TES focuses on embedded control and communication software applications, and has the right expertise. However, the two companies still needed better soft ware-hardware integration to direct the vehicle and control its movements. That meant improved translation of driver intelligence into digital form and integration of the result with the vehicle’s hardware. To accomplish their goal, the two businesses approached RMS DARPA Programs Director Mick Elam, and he appointed Mikesell to head the effort.
On May 18, the team leaders conducted a technical briefing in Building M09 and exhibited their off road Scorpion vehicle in the parking lot. “Our purpose was to spark interest among RMS employees, stimulate excitement and show off our hardware,” Mikesell explained. “This is an opportunity for us to weaponize a highly adaptable vehicle that can assume multiple military roles, including peacekeeping, scouting, emergency rescue and border protection. It is already configured for Future Combat System interoperability, because it has a mission processor for interactive battlefield communications. It also has an onboard digital mapping feature that permits display of mission and GPS data, as well as interactive terrain data and Enhanced Position Location Reporting System information. In addition, it can accommodate the military’s Single-Channel Ground and Air Radio System.”
Since the briefing, several other major teammates have been added. These include Raytheon Network Centric Systems, which will contribute sensor-system and autonomy-integration expertise; the University of Arizona, which will furnish mission-control and traffic-simulation skills; and iRobot Corporation, which will provide autonomy and cognizance technology.
Currently, Mikesell and the team are recruiting additional RMS employees who want to work on this state-of-the-art project. “We especially need radar, lidar and electro-optical sensor experts,” Mikesell commented. “We must also have guidance, navigation and control engineers who can process data and create the algorithms that will direct and guide the vehicle.”
"RMS To Lead DARPA Grand Urban Challenge Team", Raytheon Missile Systems Engineering Report, Volume XIV, No. 7 — July 2006.
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RMS To Lead DARPA Grand Urban Challenge Team
Raytheon Missile Systems Engineering Report: On May 1, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced plans to hold its Grand Urban Challenge on November 3, 2007. This competition will showcase autonomous ground vehicles carrying out simulated military missions safely and effectively in a mock urban environment.
This is DARPA’s third grand challenge. The first two showed that autonomous vehicles can travel substantial distances over rough terrain and reach their destinations.
Now DARPA wants to see if vehicles with robotics, advanced soft ware, and guidance, navigation and control capabilities can operate successfully within city infrastructures.This contest’s purpose is to ensure the widest possible public participation in accelerating autonomous urban military vehicle development. Competition requirements include safe operation in traffic, which is essential to U.S. military plans. To succeed, vehicles must autonomously travel a 60-mile course obeying all traffic laws, including merging into moving traffic, navigating traffic circles, negotiating busy intersections and avoiding obstacles. Prizes are $2 million for first place, $500,000 for second, and $250,000 for third.
RMS plans to enter this competition by forming Team Scorpion, which includes two local companies—Tucson Embedded Systems (TES) and Preferred Chassis Fabrication. “Team formation began when Preferred Chassis, which had worked with a university on the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge, contacted TES,” RMS Urban Grand Challenge Program Manager Russell Mikesell stated. “The vehicle had performed well in 2005, but the software had not.”
TES focuses on embedded control and communication software applications, and has the right expertise. However, the two companies still needed better soft ware-hardware integration to direct the vehicle and control its movements. That meant improved translation of driver intelligence into digital form and integration of the result with the vehicle’s hardware. To accomplish their goal, the two businesses approached RMS DARPA Programs Director Mick Elam, and he appointed Mikesell to head the effort.
On May 18, the team leaders conducted a technical briefing in Building M09 and exhibited their off road Scorpion vehicle in the parking lot. “Our purpose was to spark interest among RMS employees, stimulate excitement and show off our hardware,” Mikesell explained. “This is an opportunity for us to weaponize a highly adaptable vehicle that can assume multiple military roles, including peacekeeping, scouting, emergency rescue and border protection. It is already configured for Future Combat System interoperability, because it has a mission processor for interactive battlefield communications. It also has an onboard digital mapping feature that permits display of mission and GPS data, as well as interactive terrain data and Enhanced Position Location Reporting System information. In addition, it can accommodate the military’s Single-Channel Ground and Air Radio System.”
Since the briefing, several other major teammates have been added. These include Raytheon Network Centric Systems, which will contribute sensor-system and autonomy-integration expertise; the University of Arizona, which will furnish mission-control and traffic-simulation skills; and iRobot Corporation, which will provide autonomy and cognizance technology.
Currently, Mikesell and the team are recruiting additional RMS employees who want to work on this state-of-the-art project. “We especially need radar, lidar and electro-optical sensor experts,” Mikesell commented. “We must also have guidance, navigation and control engineers who can process data and create the algorithms that will direct and guide the vehicle.”
"RMS To Lead DARPA Grand Urban Challenge Team", Raytheon Missile Systems Engineering Report, Volume XIV, No. 7 — July 2006.
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