Engineering a more ‘auto’ automobile

Princeton University vehicle advances in DARPA competition

By: Katie Wagner
   A group of Princeton University students have taken another stride in their quest for developing technology for motor vehicles they think could save lives.
   On August 9, the students were notified that their engineering team would be advancing to the semifinals in the Urban Challenge, a national robotics competition sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a research and development organization for the U.S. Department of Defense.
   Since January the students have been programming a Ford Escape Hybrid to autonomously perform functions today’s vehicles are only capable of doing with a driver’s assistance in preparation for the various stages of the competition.
   "It’s good to know we’re developing technology that could save the lives of American soldiers on the battlefield," said Gordon Franken, one of the university’s students participating in the project. "What really motivates me is farther down the road we could have access to something that could save a lot of civilians’ lives.
   "Every year nearly 42,000 deaths result from crashes," Mr. Franken added.
   For the university’s team, making a self-driving vehicle required installing and building five computers, four front-facing rotating video cameras and two rear-facing video cameras; creating individual computer programs that instruct the vehicle to perform tasks as simple as stopping; installing a global positioning system and serving as the vehicle’s passenger test drive after test drive.
   Prior to advancing to the semifinalist level, the students had to submit a video of the vehicle in motion to DARPA. After that was approved, DARPA officials visited Princeton in July to evaluate the vehicle’s ability to operate autonomously on a course containing obstacles typically present in an urban area, such as bushes, stop signs and other obstacles.
   During the six weeks leading up to the in-person evaluation, the students divided themselves into two 12-hour shifts, with computer programming being done during the day and vehicle testing at night. Now that the students are approaching a more important deadline they are operating under a similar schedule.
   John Mayer, a public policy major, described participating in the project as similar to being on a varsity sports team. He likes that the project allows him to do computer programming, something he’s always enjoyed, without majoring in computer science.
   "I find politics a lot harder than computer science," Mr. Mayer said. "It’s more problematic to try to explain to my roommates, who are all public policy majors, why I’m leaving at five in the morning than to switch from studying public policy to working in engineering."
   The semi-finalist level of the competition, which runs from Oct. 26 to 31, will be held at an urban military training facility that includes a network of urban roads that DARPA officials believe best simulates the type of terrain American forces operate in when deployed overseas. The vehicles will be expected to conduct simulated military supply missions as they were during their previous evaluations.
   For the next two months the university’s students said they will be creating and testing programs for completing maneuvers their vehicles have never done before. Parking is one of the newest challenges the students are taking on. How their vehicle deals with moving obstacles when approaching an intersection or merging onto a road are other tests that it will have to perform for the first time in October. Each of the 36 vehicles selected for the semi-finals must obey California traffic laws, a detail the university’s students feel confident that their vehicle can achieve.
   "Right now, we’re trying to finish all our development before the school year starts," Mr. Franken said.
   The top 20 teams in the semi-finals will move on to compete in the final event Nov. 3, also in Anaheim, for cash prizes worth $2 million for first, $1 million for second and $500,000 for third place.Mr. Franken said the finals will differ from the semi-finals in that it will involve more than one of the self-driving vehicles operating at the same time on the same course.
   "I think it will be the first time 20 autonomous vehicles have ever been on the road together," Mr. Franken said.
   The DARPA Urban Challenge is the third in a series of competitions DARPA has held to foster the development of autonomous robotic ground vehicle technology to save lives on the battlefield. In 2005, students from the university participated in the DARPA Grand Challenge, which involved a desert course.