RT3000 navigation systems onboard seven DARPA teams
26 October 2007
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With only a few more days to go, the countdown for the biggest race of autonomously driving vehicles is on. OxTS is proud to have its RT3000 inertial and GPS navigation systems onboard seven semi-finalist teams to compete in the DARPA Urban Challenge this year.
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Unlike the race through the vast Mojave desert in 2005, the Urban Challenge will feature a dynamic urban environment with moving traffic and busy intersections. The mock urban city requires the robots to make “intelligent” decisions in real-time depending on the movements and actions of the other vehicles. The RT3000 systems will play a critical part in guiding the autonomous vehicles through this urban area designed to cause GPS dropouts and multipath. |
Interesting Links
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Inertial and GPS navigation systems give continuous, smooth position measurements even when GPS is unavailable, which makes it an ideal tool for autonomous applications such as the DARPA Urban Challenge. Optional wheel-speed input reduces drift in difficult GPS environments. All RT3000 systems provide highly accurate measurements of position and orientation (roll, pitch, heading) which is essential to navigate the vehicle and invaluable for giving corrections to the vision, LIDAR and other sensors. |
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The Urban Challenge, scheduled to take place on 3rd November 2007at an Air Force Base in California, features autonomous ground vehicles conducting simulated military supply missions in a mock urban area. All vehicles must operate entirely autonomously and obey traffic laws while merging into moving traffic and avoiding obstacles. The unmanned vehicles are competing for cash prizes worth $2 million for the fastest vehicle, and $1 million and $500,000 for second and third place. |
