Sharing the road with a robot

VICTORVILLE, Calif. - It's an article of faith at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute that autonomous robots will someday interact easily with people - whether it be in the home, in the office, or on the road. It's a vision shared by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is sponsoring the Urban Challenge, a robotic road rally with a $2 million first prize.     

That level of robotic competence may be inevitable, but the fact is that today is today and DARPA officials aren't taking any chances as the Urban Challenge forces them to place employees in the paths of robotic vehicles. The Urban Challenge may be a race strictly for robots, but humans have to be around to score the robots' performance and to hit the emergency stop button if a robotic vehicle goes berserk.

For those who have to share the road with robots, DARPA has equipped a fleet of Ford Tauruses with roll cages and their specially trained drivers with crash helmets. And DARPA has flooded the course on the former George Air Force Base with jersey barriers - known as k-barriers out here in California - to protect those officials and spectators who must watch from the sidelines. To the frustration of members of Carnegie Mellon's Tartan Racing team - who want to get every glimpse possible of their vehicle, a Chevy Tahoe named Boss - the number of spectator access points is severely limited.

At the National Qualification Event for the Urban Challenge, which began Friday with 35 teams competing for up to 20 spots in the Nov. 3 race, the concerns about collisions have become reality. On Saturday afternoon, the Georgia Tech/SAIC Sting Racing Porsche Cayenne rammed a jersey barrier at about 24 mph. And Sunday morning, Axion Racing's robotic Jeep collided with a human-driven Taurus while attempting a left turn into traffic. No person was physically injured in either incident, though some psyches were no doubt bruised.

No wonder that many of the hundreds of roboticists here say a robot-on-robot collision is all but certain during this Saturday's race.

Byron Spice