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Robot vehicles find the going rough

Virginia Tech's Cliff, a driverless robot, participating in the 142-mile race in the Mojave Desert in California on Saturday. — AP

BARSTOW (CALIFORNIA), MARCH 14. Fifteen robot vehicles took off across the Mojave Desert starting at dawn on Saturday, dodging boulders and 15-pound tortoises in search of a place in scientific history and $1 million in the Pentagon cash.

The 142-mile race over some of the most forbidding terrain on the planet was sponsored by the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, the Pentagon's own skunk works that spawned the Internet, the Predator drone and the stealth fighter.

The top qualifier, Red Team Sandstorm, sped out of the starting line at the SlashX ranch, south of Barstow, to the cheers of several thousand spectators, and quickly reached speeds of 20 miles an hour. Other vehicles followed at five-minute intervals.

Within an hour, however, the course began to take its toll. Sandstorm, based on an Army surplus Humvee and put together at the robotics laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University, was the first casualty, as it veered off course down an embankment. When Sandstorm returned to the course, it burned out a mechanical part.

Shortly afterward, David, the entry from Ensco Inc. in Falls Church, Va., struck a bush and rolled over. The Acura MDX entry from Palos Verdes High School in California failed to make a turn at the start, ran directly into a barrier and was out of the race. Less than four hours after the race began, all vehicles had either crashed or been demobilised. The most successful robot belonged to the team SciAutomics, based in Thousand Oaks, California. The team was sponsored by Elbit Systems, an Israeli manufacturer of off-road vehicles. New York Times News Service

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