Qualifying for the Department of Defense’s race of unmanned vehicles began Friday with UL’s CajunBot team among the 35 contenders.
Qualifying continues through Halloween Day. Teams that move through the qualifying round will be eligible to particpate in the $2 million Urban Challenge on Nov. 3 at a military training base in Victorville, Calif.
The qualifying event officially kicked off Friday at the Southern California Logistics Airport. The race is sponsored by the DoD’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — DARPA.
“This is all about saving lives,” Dr. Tony Tether, DARPA director. “And even if you don’t get the trophy, you are all still winners for having been here in the first place.”
UL’s team were finalist for the challenge in 2004 and 2005. The first two challenges were over desert terrain, while the Nov. 3 race will be held on the training base to test the robots in an urban environment.
may be small beans, especially considering what our cajunbot team is doing, but the Campus Technology article actually referred to us plain and simply as University of Louisiana. Just thought I'd pass on a nice tidbit to y'all.
God Bless
Qualifying for the Department of Defense's race of unmanned vehicles began Friday with UL's CajunBot team among the 35 contenders.
Qualifying continues through Wednesday.
Teams that move through the qualifying round will be eligible to participate in the $2 million Urban Challenge on Saturday at a military training base in Victorville, Calif.
The qualifying event officially kicked off Friday at the Southern California Logistics Airport.
The race is sponsored by the DoD's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - DARPA.
"This is all about saving lives," said Tony Tether, DARPA director.
That is not bad company to be named with. Thanks team cajunbot for representing us so well!"as well as Cornell University, the University of Louisiana and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology."
VICTORVILLE, Calif. - After a few roadblocks during Friday's qualifying round of the Department of Defense's 2007 Urban Challenge, Team CajunBot spent the night in the field. The sleepless night paid off Saturday.
The 12:30 p.m. qualifying round Saturday had CajunBot II finishing 13 laps without swapping paint with the five other moving vehicles on the track - a feat not many bots were able to perform.
"These guys are amazing," Dr. Arun Lakhotia, team leader, said in a news release. "Some of them are working on no sleep and others only got about two hours of sleep last night. CajunBot II's great run today is a result of their continuous dedication to this project."
VICTORVILLE, Calif. — The University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Team CajunBot finished its third day of qualifying Monday for the 2007 Urban Challenge, which pits robotic vehicles against each other in a city street setting.
This is the third challenge sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense in which Team CajunBot has competed.
CajunBot II — the robotic Jeep outfitted with a variety of sensors and computers — had a hiccup Monday, but team members said they believe they will be able to sort out the issues when the qualifying event continues today.
“We’ve gotten a lot further this morning than a lot of other bots,” Scott Wilson, Team CajunBot adviser, said in a release. “It’s not about pass or fail in qualifying rounds. It’s how you solve problems you encounter.”
The team has spent a lot of sleepless nights this weekend making last minute adjustments based on a simulation program that tracks all of CajunBot II’s movements.
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Advocate Acadiana bureau
Vehicle stumped on navigating neighborhood street
CajunBot II did what it could, but it wasn't enough to please DARPA officials Wednesday.
The autonomous vehicle designed by UL students and researchers was sidelined late Wednesday, ending the team's hopes of competing in its third race of the country's driverless vehicles.
The race is sponsored by the Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and was created about three years ago to spur private research in the area of autonomous vehicles.
On Saturday, teams from across the country will race in Victorville, Calif., for a $2 million prize.
For the past three days, 35 teams have been testing round after round on a former military base in Victorville for one of the 20 spots in the final race.
The rest of the story
Marsha Sills
msills@theadvertiser.com
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