Wednesday, November 30, 2005 Friend Center, Princeton University

1. Prospect Eleven: The Making, Testing and Running ofPrinceton’s Entry in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge Alain L. Kornhauser Team Leader, Prospect Eleven Professor, Operations Research & Financial Engineering Wednesday, November 30, 2005 Friend Center, Princeton University

2. The DARPA Grand ChallengeDefense Advanced Research Projects Administration • DARPA Grand ChallengeCreated in response to a Congressional and DoD mandate, it is a field test intended to accelerate research and development in autonomous ground vehicles that will help save American lives on the battlefield.  The Grand Challenge brings together individuals and organizations from industry, the R&D community, government, the armed services, academia, students, backyard inventors, and automotive enthusiasts in the pursuit of a technological challenge. • The First Grand Challenge:  Across the Mojave, March 2004Across the Mojave from Barstow, California to Primm, Nevada offered a $1 million prize.  From the qualifying round at the California Speedway, 15 finalists emerged to attempt the Grand Challenge.  However, the prize went unclaimed as no vehicles were able to complete the difficult desert route. • The 2005 Grand ChallengeOctober 8, 2005 in the desert near Primm.  Prize increased to $2 million. 

3. Timeline of Events

4. Prospect Eleven & Competition

5. Constraints Objective • Very little budget • Enrich the academic experience of the students Guiding Principles • Simplicity

6. Homemade “Unlike the fancy “drive by wire” system employed by Stanford and VW, Princeton’s students built a homemade set of gears to drive their pickup. I could see from the electronics textbook they were using that they were learning as they went.” http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow_viewer/0,1205,l=&s=1489&a=161569&po=2,00.asp

7. Teamwork Team Leader Alain Kornhauser*71P03 Organizational Systems Rachel Blair’06 Real-time Decision System Andrew Saxe’08 Computing Systems Anand Atreya’07 Mechanical Systems Gordon Franken’08 Electronic Systems Bryan Cattle’07 Object Detection System Brendan Collins’08 Control Systems Scott Schiffres’06 Planning Systems Josh Herbach’08

8. Timeline of Events

9. The Accomplishments: • Invited to National Qualifying Event • Seeded 10th for Grand Challenge • Accomplished 10 miles of Autonomous Driving in GC • “Completed” the 2005 & 2004 Courses during Fall Break • Some Videos • Pre_2ndSiteVisit • Wasn’t so easy, Outside • Wasn’t so easy, Inside • Essentially Perfect • Launch at Grand Challenge • Better than Last year’s Best • Return to the Desert: NoHandsGateMud

10. Lessons Learned • It is non-trivial to “Just Do It” • You must respect Uncertainty (and plan for it) • Harmonize Accuracy • Time is your Friend • (only know what you need to know when you need to know it) • More is not necessarily Better • Always assume your code has bugs • Stereo Vision Does Work • Three (3) Regimes of Autonomous Control • Under “7” mph • Between 7- 25 mph • Above 25 mph