DARPA desert racing event set for Saturday

The inaugural $1 million Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenge is scheduled to start at 6:30 a.m. Saturday near Barstow, Calif., with the fastest autonomous, robotic ground vehicle to reach the finish line near Las Vegas, within the 10-hour time limit, to take home the $1 million first-place prize.

The opening ceremony started Monday at the California Speedway, in Fontana, Calif., with qualifying events, free of charge, running from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Friday, or until all teams have had two chances to qualify.

DARPA project manager and U.S. Air Force Colonel Jose Negron enlisted the help of Sal Fish and his SCORE International off-road organization to oversee elements of route development and logistics support. SCORE has been producing championship desert racing since 1973.

"To be asked to participate in a monumental, pioneering event like the DARPA Grand Challenge is an incredible testimony to the reputation SCORE International has built and maintained for over three decades," Fish said. "The detail that is going into producing this extremely important project for DARPA and the Department of Defense rivals a NASA robot launch to Mars, it's absolutely amazing. For SCORE, and the 100-plus key SCORE personnel we have involved, helping produce this extreme field test really brings out the red, white and blue in each of us."

Fish said it took three years to prepare for the Tecate SCORE Baja 2000 race, but that event pales in comparison to the amount of time and resources involved with the DARPA Grand Challenge.

Fish and his team helped, among other things, identify and design a route that would be challenging, yet capable of being traversed by vehicles without a human driver.

A total of 25 entries, of more than 100 that originally submitted applications, were invited to participate in the Qualifying, Inspection, Demonstration (QID) at California Speedway. The QID will determine final acceptance and starting order for the field test.

Teams selected to participate hail from a wide range of backgrounds, organizations and parts of the country, and were selected based on a rigorous evaluation of technical papers and selected site visits.

"We have clearly sparked the enthusiasm and innovation that makes America great," Negron said. "The teams comprise students, engineers and inventors, with many working in their home garages. These talented participants will bring fresh thinking to autonomous ground vehicle technology for national defense. I am confident that our warfighters will benefit in the coming years from the technologies that these teams will be fielding in the Grand Challenge."

At the QID event, teams will undergo a series of tests that will determine the ability of the systems to navigate and avoid obstacles.

On race day, the unmanned vehicles will leave the start line, one at a time, in the elapsed-time event. The exact route will not be made known until two hours before the scheduled start.

Due to safety pauses that may be required during the event, the DARPA Grand Challenge field exercise may take two days to complete.

Those interested in the $1 million DARPA Grand Challenge can visit darpa.mil/grandchallenge. For SCORE, call (818) 225-8402 or visit score-international.com.


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