বুধবার, ১৬ জুলাই, ২০১৪

Vehicle | Team Jefferson

Vehicle

Team Jefferson’s New Tommy Junior bot

Tommy Jr. is based on a Scion xB vehicle platform. The team’s secret weapon is the patent pending MAX software platform from Perrone Robotics. MAX represents the DNA and core robotics operating system that enables the rapid drop-in of commercially available and affordable sensors, hardware, and actuators. MAX is based 100% on Sun Microsystems’ Java technology. Tommy Junior’s micro-controllers and single low-cost standard car PC run the MAX robotics platform atop of standard, micro, and Java Real Time System (Java RTS) profiles.

The team’s after-market drop-in approach enables any vehicle whatsoever to be made fully autonomous within a short period of time. Tommy Junior’s cost in parts has been a mere $50,000 which includes the automotive platform itself. After actuators and hardware were dropped in, Tommy Junior was up and running in just 24 hours with Tommy senior navigation and obstacle avoidance capabilities. While Tommy Junior and Tommy senior share the same MAX DNA, Tommy Junior has since surpassed his father’s wits with new rules of behavior rapidly evolved for city driving.

Tommy Junior. He’s a teenage robot coming to a city street near you…and demonstrates that putting a robotic car in every garage with a MAX in every bot is possible now.

Tommy at DARPA Grand Challenge

A few pictures of Team Jefferson’s “Tommy” Senior at the 2005 qualifying events and in the desert are shown below.

Tommy at the National Qualifying Events (California Speedway).

California Speedway…crossing the finish line.

80 mph in the desert.

Climbing a narrow pass.

The Challenge | Team Jefferson

The Challenge

The DARPA Grand Challenge is an event established by the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency which offers prize money for the team who can build completely self-driving robotic vehicles to complete a complex mission goal. There are no humans onboard and there is no human remotely controlling the vehicles. The vehicles are completely autonomous.

The 2004 DARPA Grand Challenge took place holding out a $1 million dollar prize for the vehicle that could traverse a 142 mile desert stretch in 10 hours or less. One vehicle made it 7.4 miles, a few made it 5 or 6 miles, and many didn’t make it very far past the starting line.

In 2005 the prize money was increased to $2 million dollars for the vehicle that could traverse a new 132 mile course in the desert. Perrone Robotics formed Team Jefferson initially as a small budget side project to demonstrate a faster and cheaper approach for complex robotics development using their MAX robotics software platform. After a number of intermediate milestone evaluations, 195 applications were ultimately whittled down to 40 semi-finalists invited out to trials at the California Speedway with Team Jefferson among them. Stanford University partnering with Volkswagen completed the course just under 7 hours.

In 2007, a new challenge, the Urban Challenge, will take place with autonomous vehicles navigating city driving conditions, merging with traffic, obeying traffic laws, parallel parking, and many other new challenges. The Urban Challenge requires that vehicles autonomously navigate over 60 miles of such conditions in 6 hours or less. A first prize of $2 million is being offered followed by a $500k second prize and $250k third prize. Team Jefferson intends to be there.

In the same spirit of the race which resulted in the aviation prize awarded to Charles Lindbergh in 1927 for crossing the Atlantic, DARPA has managed to galvanize engineers, scientists, tinkerers, and entrepreneurs from all walks of life in this tribute to our nation’s heritage of risk-taking, innovation, and competition to participate in these historic robotic racing events.

More information can be found on DARPA’s Web site.

Sponsors | Team Jefferson

Sponsors

Team Jefferson would not be possible without the contributions from our sponsors. Individuals and companies with a vision and passion to see humanity embark on our next great revolutionary journey in the proliferation of practical robotics understand the pioneering role that the DARPA Grand Challenge plays in this venture. America is revving its engines at the starting line for this challenge that will help catapult our creativity, economy, safety, freedoms, and lifestyle to greater heights. Our sponsors are undeniably the founding fathers for this next wave of prosperity for America.

www.perronerobotics.com

Perrone Robotics, Inc. is the founding sponsor and participant in Team Jefferson. Perrone Robotics develops affordable, extensible, user-friendly, and high assurance software solutions for robotics. Their MAX robotics operating system and MAX-UGV framework are foundational components of Tommy and Tommy Jr.

www.sun.com

Eventually every man, woman, and child on the planet will be connected to the network. So will virtually everything with a digital or electrical heartbeat — from mobile phones to automobiles, thermostats to razor blades with RFID tags on them. The resulting network traffic will require highly scalable, reliable systems, from Sun. Find Sun across the globe and on NASDAQ: SUNW.

www.seas.virginia.edu

The University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science educates engineering and technology leaders through innovative academic programming and experiential learning opportunities such as Team Jefferson and the DARPA challenge. The Engineering School provided financial sponsorship for the team’s involvement in this competition.

http://www.northropgrumman.com/
Northrop Grumman Corporation is a $30 billion global defense and technology company whose 120,000 employees provide innovative systems, products, and solutions in information and services, electronics, aerospace and shipbuilding to government and commercial customers worldwide.

www.bdmetrics.com (now threestage.com)

BDMetrics is the developer of You-Based® personalization technology for the tradeshow industry. The technology finds all relevant people, products, session and events that relate to each unique attendee and exhibitor weeks before the show ever begins. This personalization technology customizes the show experience around the unique needs of each individual. The result is more attendees justifying attending events, more exhibitors exhibiting at events and high customer satisfaction. BDMetrics partners with leading tradeshow owners/association to redefine and reinforce the value (ROI ) their customers receive from attending or exhibiting at their tradeshow and extend the relationship with their customers 365 days a year.

www.45Fix.com

Got home improvement projects, but no time? Let 45Fix help. More and more Americans are choosing to take on home remodeling projects every day. And everyone needs a handyman from time to time. 45Fix not only delivers you multiple proposals from carefully screened contractors, but provides live customer service and local representatives to make sure your home improvement project goes smoothly.

www.tdfund.com

TDF is a specialized venture capital fund, focused on seed, early stage and select later stage investments in communications. The investment team at TDF brings over 60 years of operational and investing experience from previous assignments at AT&T Ventures, JPMorgan Capital, NEA, Spectrum Equity, Crosspoint Ventures, AT&T, Bell Labs, Nextel, and McCaw. TDF is a venture capital firm with $50M under management in two funds for preferred equity investments between $500k and $2.5M.

www.sick.com
SICK is one of the world’s leading producers of sensors and sensor solutions for industrial applications. SICK is a technology and market leader in both factory and process automation.

Assured Technologies

http://www.assuredtech.com/

Assured Technologies, Inc. helps organizations architect and develop high-assurance software platforms and infrastructure atop of which they may deploy their applications more dependably and rapidly. Assured Technologies has offered both financial and advanced software consulting support to Team Jefferson.

Wowwee Ltd. is a privately-owned, Hong Kong based company with a global sales and distribution network. The Company is the recognized leader in the manufacturing of innovative and award winning hi-tech consumer robotic and entertainment products, such as Robosapien ™, Roboraptor ™, FlyTech ™ Dragonfly, Roboquad ™, Robopanda ™ and Wowwee Alive ™ Elvis (circle R). For more information and to see the latest Wowwee products please visit www.wowwee.com.

connect. communicate. control.

Comtrol is a worldwide leader in device connectivity, industrial Ethernet gateways, and intelligent embedded data communications. Comtrol provides connectivity for PC or PLC platforms and can be found in a range of applications. Comtrol’s flagship products are the DeviceMaster® line of serial device servers and the RocketPort® family of multi-port serial communication products. Comtrol has 25-years experience in helping businesses network-enable devices.

http://www.bodine-electric.com/

In 1905, two years after the Wright brothers powered flight, the Bodine brothers produced their first electric motor for a dental drill manufacturer. Since then, Bodine products have earned their reputation as the standard for performance where reliability and dependability are essential.

About the team | Team Jefferson

About the team

Perrone Robotics formed Team Jefferson out of Charlottesville, Virginia in 2004 as a small budget side project in an attempt to see how far and fast they could progress in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge. The idea was to see how Perrone Robotics’ MAX robotics software platform could be used to rapidly develop and integrate a complex autonomous ground vehicle (AGV) application. 195 applications were received by DARPA from teams across the country. After a series of applications, video demonstrations, and site visit evaluations, 40 teams were accepted to participate in the National Qualifying Events at the California Speedway with Team Jefferson and their silver egg-shaped dune buggy “Tommy” among the pack.

Tommy fared well during the National Qualifying Events in California including a perfect third run avoiding all obstacles along the way. Tommy was among the top 10 after its third run and garnered much media attention due to its unique design and the team’s “faster and cheaper” development approach mantra and persona. The budget for development of Tommy was just $60k, involved less than 10 man-months of software development time, and all of Tommy’s intelligence ran on a single processor card costing less than $200. In contrast, some of the more well financed teams reportedly spent millions of dollars on their project, hundreds of man-years, and employed banks of high-end processor platforms. In what started as a low-budget side project trying to demonstrate a “faster & cheaper” approach for building AGVs, Team Jefferson ultimately advanced very far and was a competitive entry with an extremely minimal amount of time and money expended.

Stories, pictures, and details of Tommy were featured in 100s of print and online media sources. Sources included the Washington Post, MSNBC, the Early Today show, ABC, CBS, NBC, Popular Mechanics, Scientific American, a PBS documentary, Monster Garage, and numerous other local and national publication outlets. A film crew was also embedded with the team and is completing a documentary film geared for theatrical release in 2007. Even after the 2005 events, Tommy continues to garner national attention and recognition. At the 2006 Sun Microsystems JavaOne conference, Perrone Robotics” was recognized with a Duke Award in the Emerging Technology category from Sun Microsystems for Tommy and MAX. Tommy and team lead Paul Perrone were also invited out to speak with James Gosling, father of the Java programming platform, during Gosling’s keynote at Sun’s 2006 JavaOne conference (approximately 15,000 attendees). A live demo of Tommy in 2006 during a “Tommy tailgate” at Sun Microsystems” headquarters was also picked up by MSNBC, the Early Today show, and television broadcasts to over 44 cities nationwide.

Team Jefferson also participated in the 2007 Urban Challenge events investing more time and resources. For a complete de-briefing on the team’s adventures, click here: /about-the-team/debrief/

Paul J. Perrone

Team Lead: Paul J. Perrone is the founder and CEO of Perrone Robotics, maker of the MAX general purpose Java-based robotics software platform. Paul also led Team Jefferson to the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge qualifiers fielding a MAX-based robotic dune buggy named ‘Tommy’. He also led Team Jefferson’s work on ‘Tommy Junior’, an autonomous Scion xB for the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge and is continuously applying the MAX robotics software platform in numerous commercial robotics products.
Peter Bonanni

Peter Bonanni is a 3rd year Computer Engineering student at the University of Virginia. He joined this effort after gaining experience on another DARPA program called RealWorld. On the Tommy Team he dealt with design and construction of the electrical control and power systems. During the final in California he also worked on electronics and debugging of the line recognition software . He now has returned to the DARPA RealWorld Project.
Anup Ghosh

Anup Ghosh, a former DARPA program manager and veteran DARPA Grand Challenge participant, is a Team Advisor to Team Jefferson. Ghosh also helped lead the fundraising efforts for Team Jefferson as well as provide strategic direction to navigating myriad obstacles to the National Qualifier Event.

Ghosh is currently a Research Professor and Chief Scientist at George Mason University’s Center for Secure Information Systems, and also Chief Executive and President of Secure Command, LLC.
David Rusbarsky

David graduated from The Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in 2006 with a BS in Computer Science. While at RIT, he competed against Team Jefferson in the DARPA Grand Challenge 2005 on team GCart@RIT and was involved with various other robotic projects on campus. After graduating, David was hired by Perrone Robotics as a software engineer and has since helped with Team Jefferson while implementing a wide variety of commercial projects.
Mike Woosley

Mike served as the Chief Financial Officer of Advertising.com from its inception in 1999 until it was sold to AOL in August of 2004.

Previously, Mike worked for Mars & Co, a French company engaged in advisory and consulting services. Mike spent most of his time at Mars working on merger and acquisition transactions in the energy industry.

Mike started his career in engineering. He graduated with honors from the University of Virginia earning BS, MS, and PhD degrees. He has worked at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge National Laboratories, and for the Atomic Energy Commission of France.

Mike is currently Chief Financial Officer of Maryland-based BDMetrics, Inc.
Michael Myers

Michael is a 4th year Mechanical Engineering student at the University of Virginia from Rockville, Virginia. He has been with Team Jefferson since their first endeavor, Tommy Senior. He has dealt with all aspects of the vehicle, including mechanical, electrical, and software. He will be in Germany for a year eating snitzel and drinking beer.
George Cahen

Professor George Cahen joined the faculty at the University of Virginia School of Engineering in 1976. He is a member of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and is the Director of Experiential Programs and Engineering Outreach for the School. He has taught a number of core engineering classes as well as introductory materials classes to undergraduates throughout his years at UVa and has since the 90′s been the faculty advisor to a number of automotive oriented collegiate competition teams which include Solar Car and SAE Mini Baja. Presently he is serving as the faculty advisor to engineering students working on the Team Jefferson DARPA Urban Challenge Robotic Car.
Brian J. Geiger

Brian J. Geiger joined Team Jefferson and Perrone Robotics as their Project Manager in June of 2007. Although he’s recently worked in the print publication industry, it was his experience in video games and integrating game software with game hardware that really led him towards a life in robotics.

Team Jefferson

Home

Team Jefferson and their spirited, off-road, silver egg-shaped dune buggy “Tommy” were involved with the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge events.

In 2007, the team returned with Tommy’s progeny, “Tommy Junior”, a tricked out robotic Scion xB, for the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge.

Click Here for Team Jefferson Post-Race Debriefing!

Click here to see a video of Tommy Jr going through his motions.

To obtain a DVD of “AUTOPILOTS”, a documentary on Team Jefferson’s 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge experiences, visit the AUTOPILOTS Web site, or place a DVD order directly at the AUTOPILOTS DVD Order site.

Team Jefferson and “Tommy Junior”