Tuesday, June 7, 2005
Semifinalists Announced For Robotic Race
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has announced the semifinalists for the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge, the race that is offering a $2M prize to a successful developer of a robotic, self-navigating vehicle. The agency selected 40 semifinalists for the qualification event, which will be held in October at the California Speedway in Fontana. The 40 semifinalists were picked from a pool of 118 entrants. The Grand Challenge's goal is for teams to create a fully robotic ground vehicle which can navigate 150 miles over rugged desert roads using only onboard sensors and navigation. Attesting to the strength of Southern California's tech industry, over a quarter of the pool, 12 of the 40 semifinalists, were from Southern California. Southern California teams which made the cut included: A.I. Motorvators - Los Angeles; Autonomous Vehicle Systems - San Diego; Axion Racing - Westlake Village; CyberRider - San Juan Capistrano; The Golem Group / UCLA - Santa Monica; Palos Verdes High School Road - Palos Verdes; SciAutonics/Auburn Engineering - Thousand Oaks; Team AION - Carlsbad; Team Banzai - Irvine; Team Caltech - Pasadena; Team Tormenta - Los Angeles; and Terra Engineering - Palos Verdes.