What will DARPA think of next?

No problemo. Maybe the project would be to create an unmanned vehicle that would go up to a certain height, and then have to slove some sort of task, such as go from A to B, while going to an altitude of X. This is more of random idea spewing, but maybe something as complex as going from A to B using altitude X, and when reaching point B, they must deploy some sort of object. Then, travel back to A would be necessary to finish.

The craziness of this idea would cause the robots to have to be able to carry payload, go from one point to another (very far away), and then deploy the payload and return. This could be useful for resupply as well, as a flying project could take items and supplies great distances without the fear of low altitude anti-air.

[Matt Leese]

Originally Posted by Billfred

Maybe I'm screwed up in the head, but I think the next level will involve dealing with more traffic. After all, if the military's looking to put autonomous vehicles in combat, they're going to have to deal with things moving around them.

They're not looking for combat vehicles. They're looking to make automated resupply vehicles. This is particularly pertinent given that supply convoys were being heavily targetted by the insurgency in Iraq. If you don't have actual people driving the trucks, it becomes a lot safer to run the convoys. It's also much cheaper for the military (people are expensive). Remember that for every one combat soldier there are something like 10 soldiers behind the lines to make sure that one can fight (those numbers stem from World War 2; I'm not sure what the current figures are but I'd bet them to be higher if anything).

Matt

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Matt Leese

They're not looking for combat vehicles. They're looking to make automated resupply vehicles. This is particularly pertinent given that supply convoys were being heavily targetted by the insurgency in Iraq. If you don't have actual people driving the trucks, it becomes a lot safer to run the convoys. It's also much cheaper for the military (people are expensive). Remember that for every one combat soldier there are something like 10 soldiers behind the lines to make sure that one can fight (those numbers stem from World War 2; I'm not sure what the current figures are but I'd bet them to be higher if anything).

Matt

Granted, bad word choice. But even if all war were to end tomorrow, and we could all frolic in the fields, such devices would still have to deal with traffic.

[Matt Leese]

Originally Posted by Billfred

Granted, bad word choice. But even if all war were to end tomorrow, and we could all frolic in the fields, such devices would still have to deal with traffic.

Not really. They're not designed for an urban environment. More for resupplying troops out in the field. There isn't too much traffic when travelling offroad.

Matt

[Mike]

Originally Posted by mechanicalbrain

Are you sure? It looks like some teams are going well into 11 hours.

Well I'm sure that the 10 hours is to win the competition. They will probably let robots run until they complete the course just to see what time they will get.

[dlavery]

The conditions of the Grand Challenge require that the robots finish the course in 10 hours or less to be eligible for the $2,000,000 prize. Operations are continuing on October 9 to allow TerraMax to complete the course, even though they will be out of contention for the money (given that not even one team finished last year, just being able to finish this year is a very worthy achievement, so they are being given every chance to do so by DARPA).

-dave