Raleigh, NC – The NC State sponsored Lone Wolf, a fully robotic Lotus Elise, demonstrated its sleek maneuvering to a crowd of over 300 spectators last Friday in the McKimmons Center parking lot. Young and old alike delighted as the Lone Wolf drove itself through the parking lot with no human intervention and no remote control. Spectators included middle school and high school robotics teams from Apex and Greensboro. The demonstration was sponsored by the team, the IEEE Robotics & Automation Chapter, and IEEE Women In Engineering.
The team of engineers and students developing the Lone Wolf is known as Insight Racing. The Lotus Elise has been specially equipped to compete in the DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) Urban Challenge. The Urban Challenge is the 3rd in a series of robotic Grand Challenge races sponsored by the Department of Defense to encourage development of autonomous vehicle control.
Designed to meet a congressional mandate that one-third of the United State's military vehicles will be capable of autonomous driving by 2015, the Urban Challenge will take place on November 3, 2007 in Victorville, California. The team of competitors has been narrowed to 36 from the original 89 contenders. The next step in the competition is the National Qualification even on October 26-31, also at Victorville. Insight Racing's Lone Wolf is one of the 36 remaining contenders.
The Urban Challenge is not the only purpose for the Lone Wolf. The team hopes it will inspire students to study engineering. "We are delighted to have so many young students come out to view our fully autonomous Lotus," said Grayson Randall, founder and team leader for Insight Racing. "We hope to show our future engineers that there is no limit to what they can do or imagine."
When asked what is left to be done before the race, team members said that they were completing some final hardware and software changes and planned extensive testing before leaving for California.
About Insight Racing: Insight Racing is a robotic vehicle racing team sponsored by NC State University, Lotus Engineering, Insight Technologies, The Advanced Vehicle Research Center, SAS, Northrop Grumman, NC CAR, Comtrol Corporation, Smith Anderson, Ascot Technologies, Auto Europe, BDMICRO LLC, PC MedEvac, Tekelec, Automation Direct, Cinnamon Peripherals, DataWatt Solutions, NC Global TransPark, Four Brothers Auto, gridconnect, Lotus of Durham, Novatel, OmniSTAR, PEAK system technik, Revware, Sanford Lee County Regional Airport, Yokohama Tires, Four Brothers Auto and Henry's Muffler Shop. More information can be found at www.insightracing.org or email walt@insightracing.org.
About the DARPA Urban Challenge: The DARPA Urban Challenge race is the third in a series of Grand Challenges. It has captured international attention because this driverless vehicle race stretches the limits of current technology know-how. Detailed information can be found at www.grandchallenge.org. |
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