A&Q about Lotus
Q:
Lotus Engineering has provided the NC State team an Elise for the 07 Darpa Urban Challenge()
"The course will involve a 60-mile (96 km) urban area course, to be completed in less than 6 hours. Rules will include obeying all traffic regulations while negotiating with other traffic and obstacles and merging into traffic. DARPA also announced that it will allow teams to submit proposals for up to US$1 Million in development funds. While the 2004 and 2005 events were more physically challenging for the vehicles, the robots operated in isolation and did not encounter other vehicles on the course. The Urban Challenge requires designers to build vehicles able to obey all traffic laws while they detect and avoid other robots on the course. This is a particular challenge for vehicle software, as vehicles must make “intelligent” decisions in real time based on the actions of other vehicles."
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A:
Funny, a car as low as an Elise as a robot that probably will at some point stray off course onto rocks and other large obstacles.
Also there usually has to be alot of storage space for the on board computers and such.
Still, lightweight and manueverable, it might win!
A:
Originally Posted by LARRY
Funny, a car as low as an Elise as a robot that probably will at some point stray off course onto rocks and other large obstacles.
Also there usually has to be alot of storage space for the on board computers and such.
Still, lightweight and manueverable, it might win!
I think you're thinking about the one they ran off road for the past few years. This seems to be a road course.
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This may very well be the first automatic transmission Lotus Elise in the US (The world?)
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Interesting.
This could be really good (because the car is extremely maneuverable), or really bad (because body damage is expensive to fix (although a wreck would disqualify any car), and is low, so depending on how the sensors are set up, it may have trouble navigating the urban environment.)
In addition, this is supposed to be so that robotic tanks can maneuver through a city. A Lotus isn't at all tanklike.
However, it is all about the algorithms, in this case. They can be adapted to other less manueverable vehicles.
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NCSU's engineering students get sporty two-seater for next year's DARPA Challenge
North Carolina State University may be having a pretty rough football season this year, but things are looking up for the school's College of Engineering. It was announced that the school will be fielding a new vehicle into the 2007 DARPA Grand Challenge to replace its previous 1987 Suburban: a Lotus Elise.
The Elise, which is nicknamed "Lone Wolf," was provided by Lotus Engineering and the entire project will be a collaborative effort among Insight Technologies Inc., Lotus Engineering Inc. and the Advanced Vehicle Research Center (AVRC).
Next year's race will be held in a mock urban environment which makes the small and nimble Lotus Elise a natural fit for NCSU. Vehicles competing will be required to perform such tasks as navigating city streets complete with traffic as well as perform parking maneuvers -- something that some high-end luxury vehicles are already doing.
Scoring a hot little two-seater like the Lotus Elise is quite the coup for NCSU, but it doesn't have nearly the amount of room for equipment as last year's Suburban. And there's also the issue of replacing the Elise's 6-speed manual with an automatic or semi-automatic transmission.
"We have a highly talented dynamic team that is composed of students from NC State University, members of the Triangle technical community and retired business executives. The development of robotics technology will allow us to accomplish both human relief and military missions that pose a threat to our country’s personnel. We are thrilled to compete in this innovative race, which is moving autonomous driving ahead so rapidly," said Grayson Randall, founder of Insight Racing.
The previous DARPA Grand Challenge, in which NCSU's Suburban finished 12th place in a field of 196, was a 131-mile race across the Nevada desert. The desert was littered with completely autonomous vehicles vying for a $2 million USD prize.
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Not sure if this has been posted before but its interesting.
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Threads merged.
cheers,
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Hmmmmm... They will probably need to swap out the manual for an automatic, but the computer can control the drive by wire throttle. Be interesting to watch how fast they can make that car maneuver through traffic autonomously ...
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The partnership with NC State came from the partnership between North Carolina and Lotus Engineering on the Advanced Vehicle Research Center.
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Considering the amount of storage space used up for computers and sensing equipment on the Stanford team's car (and NCSU car) I don't know if this is a good thing...
Like Ricky Bobby said, "If you ain't first, you're last..."
Go Pack! Better moo than blue...
'Greg
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Threads merged.