"Rocky," a XRT-1500 Club Car, into a fully

Engineering students are turning "Rocky," a XRT-1500 Club Car, into a fully autonomous vehicle for the
2005 Grand Challenge race across the Mojave Desert in October. Shown here, members of the Virginia
Tech Grand Challenge team, all undergraduates, are making modifications to Rocky with faculty adviser
Charles Reinholtz, Alumni Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering.
CONTACT:
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Virginia Tech qualifies two vehicles for DARPA Grand Challenge race across Mojave Desert
BLACKSBURG, June 7, 2005 — Two Virginia Tech engineering teams are among only 40 in the nation
to qualify for the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge autonomous vehicle competition, which offers a cash
prize of $2 million. In addition, Virginia Tech is one of only two competitors to qualify two vehicles —
“Rocky” and “Cliff” — for the race across the Mojave Desert on October 8, 2005.
DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), the research arm of the U.S. Defense
Department, announced the qualifying teams on June 6. To successfully compete in the Grand Challenge,
autonomous vehicles will have to navigate a course of about 150 miles through the Mojave Desert —
with no human intervention allowed past the starting line.
The 40 qualifiers include 16 teams from universities and one from a high school. Companies, engineering
firms and groups of individuals also formed qualifying teams. Virginia Tech and Carnegie Mellon
University are the only competitors that have each developed two qualifying vehicles.
DARPA narrowed an original field of 195 entries to a first round group of 118 teams. In May DARPA
technical staff conducted on-site visits to select the 40 second-round qualifying vehicles, which had to
navigate narrow 200-meter courses that included turns and randomly placed obstacles.
DARPA offered a prize of $1 million for the first Grand Challenge in March 2004. Cliff, the 2004
Virginia Tech entry, was one of only 15 out of an original field of 106 to qualify for the final starting line
cut last year. No vehicle traveled farther than about seven miles during the 2004 race.
DARPA’s goal in sponsoring a second competition and increasing the prize to $2 million is to continue to
encourage university and industry engineering teams to help develop unmanned vehicles that the military
can deploy in dangerous situations. The competing teams receive no financial support from DARPA.
“The basic premise of robotics, including autonomous vehicles, is keeping people from having to perform
dirty, dull or dangerous jobs — the ‘three Ds,’” said the Virginia Tech team’s adviser Charles Reinholtz,
Alumni Distinguished Professor of mechanical engineering.
“The technologies employed in developing the vehicles for this competition have far-ranging uses,”
Reinholtz said. “For example, unmanned military supply convoys and land mine clearing vehicles are of
particular interest to DARPA. Robotic vacuum cleaning, lawn mowing and coal mining are concepts that
are catching on in everyday life.”
Both Virginia Tech autonomous vehicles have been developed from off-road, four-wheel-drive utility
vehicles donated by Club Car. Cliff, updated from last year’s event, and Rocky, converted into an
autonomous vehicle during the past academic year, have been programmed by Reinholtz and his teams of
primarily undergraduate engineering students to interpret terrain and make all decisions about navigation,
route planning and obstacle avoidance.
Cliff and Rocky are equipped with on-board computers that communicate with advanced sensing
technology, including global mapping systems, Geographical Information System data, radar, laser
rangefinders and thermal imaging cameras.
The Virginia Tech vehicles will compete in the national qualifying event at the California Speedway in
Fontana, CA, from Sept. 27 to Oct. 5. Of the 40 vehicles in that event, DARPA will chose 20 to go to the
Grand Challenge starting line. The team whose vehicle completes the 150 mile Mojave Desert course the
fastest within a ten-hour time period will win the $2 million prize.