DARPA Grand Challenge Success!
The DARPA Grand Challenge is a race through a 175 mile desert course featuring natural and man-made obstacles. The problem, no driver in the vehicle. The prize money for this October 8th Event is 2 million dollars. The race will be held on an undisclosed course near Primm, Nevada, USA.
Over 170 teams entered the competition and 43 teams were selected for the pre-qualifier. We are proud that all three teams that use the RT3000 Inertial and GPS Navigation System have qualified for the final 20 places in the race.
| Team TerraMax | |
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Team TerraMax, with the monstrous MTVR Defense Truck Platform had the largest entry by far. They completed the pre-qualifier course successfully on their first 4 occasions, navigating through the 10ft wide tunnel with a 9ft wide vehicle and only breaking two tank traps. This vehicle is capable of going over rough terrain at speeds of over 45mph. TerraMax have spent two months in the desert and have completed hundreds of miles of testing. For more details see www.terramax.com |
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| Gray Team | |
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Gray Team, based out of New Orleans and suffering from the effects of Katrina made it to the finals having lost their final month of testing. The Gray Team vehicle is based on a Ford Escape Hybrid. The Gray Team have done amazingly well to get this far, having only started 8 months ago. For more details see www.grayinsco.com |
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| Team CajunBot | |
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Team CajunBot from the University of Louisiana have a MAX Amphibious All Terrain Vehicle. CajunBot suffered transmission failure during the qualifiers and worked hard late into the night to get their “Bot” through the course. For more details see www.cajunbot.com |
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For all teams the RT3000 is an invaluable part of their system, giving navigation data, corrections to the vision, LIDAR and other sensors. The ease of use factor and robust design made it a great choice for these teams!
