The Great Robot Race will air on NOVA Tuesday Night (March 28, 2005). If you can’t watch it then, it will be available on-line Wednesday. Not only are Aerospace concerns competing for DoD DARPA funds, but some scrappy smaller outfits will be involved. Team entrants named “Sandstorm” and “Ghostrider” and 10 others will race across the Mojave Desert to prove their viability as robotic ground vehicles. Speed isn’t the main objective for the DARPA award.
NOVA’s ‘The Great Robot Race’ airs Tuesday
Join NOVA for an exclusive backstage pass to the DARPA Grand Challenge—a raucous race for robotic, driverless vehicles sponsored by the Pentagon, which awards a $2 million purse to the winning team. Armed with artificial intelligence, laser-guided vision, GPS navigation, and 3-D mapping systems, the contenders are some of the world’s most advanced robots. Yet even their formidable technology and mechanical prowess may not be enough to overcome the grueling 130-mile course through Nevada’s desert terrain. From concept to construction to the final competition, “The Great Robot Race” delivers the absorbing inside story of clever engineers and their unyielding drive to create a champion, capturing the only aerial footage that exists of the Grand Challenge.
Image: Some of the Robots entered in the race. NOVA