First Test

Oct. 25, 2007
7:00am- The team arrives in the pit to prepare the vehicles for a calibration run. Going through the same motions as we have thousands of times before, the team brings the vehicles and software online. A team meeting is called to go over the test plan, so that everyone knows their role. The alloted 30 minutes is a short amount of time to do testing in, so everything must run smoothly.

9:30am- Odin is placed within the boundaries of the practice area by team members. Everyone is evacuated from the area, and looks on anxiously from behind K-barriers. The DARPA officials flip the switch to send Odin into autonomous for the first time since leaving Virginia Tech. Odin jumps to a magnificent start spitting out dirt and gravel from behind his wheels. Twenty feet later, Odin comes to an unexpected halt and exits autonomous mode- far from what the team had hoped for. It was immediately apparent to the team that the failure was not caused by any of our systems. The source of the failure was hypothesized to be the Omnitech E-Stop, a piece of hardware required and provided by DARPA. This would not be the first time that we had experienced trouble with the Omnitech system. The Omnitech technician soon arrived and confirmed the failure. The team is forced to reschedule for a later test time.

12:30- Second test run. This time Odin is turned loose and is able to complete his first "real" autonomous run flawlessly. Team Victor Tango proceeds to test several functionalities in the alloted 30 minutes. Satisfied with all of the systems, the team returns to the pit.

Reunited with the Vehicles

Oct. 24, 2007
Up at 5:30am, the team indulges in the hotel's continental breakfast that will energize them for the first day with the vehicles at George's Air Force Base. Not sure if they are still just blurry eyed, many team members notice other hotel guests dressed rather uniquely. We are ready to chalk it up to the California way of life, when someone finds out that there is a Lacoste photo shoot based out of the hotel. Apparently the deserts of Victorville have drawn more than just autonomous vehicles this week.

The atmosphere at George's Air Force Base is electric as teams check in for the competion that they have all been working towards for the last year and a half. We are one of the first teams on site to set up our pit area. There is much work to be done to unpack the supplies and vehicles. Our pit is located between the MIT and Autonomous Solutions teams. Over the course of three hours, the Victor Tango command center is raised and populated with our vehicles and equipment.

New vehicles trickle in as the day passes, each with a unique array of instruments decorating their bumpers and roof racks. See the video below for scenes from Day 1 of the Urban Challenge grounds. Many teams experienced trouble getting their vehicles and support trailers settled in the pit areas. One team had a brake line rupture on their trailer trying to clear a curb. Carnegie Mellon, or "Tartan Racing", drew a crowd when it took over an hour to unload a single vehicle from their trailer.

No testing can be done today, just GPS alignment and hardware checks. The team finds everything has arrived in working order and expects a successful National Qualifying Event (NQE) run this coming weekend.

Team Arrives In Victorville!

Oct. 23, 2007
After a long day of travel together, and the team members perhaps getting to know each other a little too well, Victor Tango converges on the Ontario, CA airport. Thankful to be back on solid ground, Team Victor Tango proceeds to obtain a convoy of five rental mini-vans. The convoy defies high winds in the mountain passes, and eventually reaches Victorville, CA. Not so lucky were several tractor trailers that ended up on their sides on the edge of the road. In Victorville, wildfires can be spotted across the horizon and ash drops from the sky. Fortunately, Victorville is not predicted to have any evacuations caused by the fires.

The team finds out quickly that the 90 degree weather during the day does not last long. As the sun falls, the temperature drops to around 40 degrees fairly quickly. Extreme temperatures and temperature changes can have unforeseen effects on hardware. The team has tested Odin in extreme temperatures before, so there should be no problems. However, the team will be closely monitoring all aspects of the vehicle to make sure any issues are immediately detected. Tomorrow will be a busy day, checking in and getting the vehicles and pit area set up. Wish us luck.

Public Demo

Oct. 14, 2007
As the team prepares to send Odin off to California for competition, we had the opportunity to provide one last demonstration to the public. The crowd included students, faculty, regular citizens, and members of the media. Shown at the Corporate Research Center (CRC) at Virginia Tech, Odin exhibited his exceptional ability to fit into normal traffic flow seamlessly. If it wasn't for the array of sensors and flashing lights mounted to the vehicle, you would need to ask which one was autonomous. Odin even honks at vehicles that do not obey traffic rules.



As a prelude to the demonstration, the team described the various technical aspects of the vehicle that allow autonomous operation. Team member Jesse Hurdus is seen here giving the crowd a description of the way Odin "thinks".

NPR covered the event. The resulting story can be found here: http://www.wvtf.org/news_and_notes/index.php

Victor Tango Hosts Dean's Visit

Oct. 10, 2007
Dr. Benson, the Dean of the College of Engineering at VT, and Dr. Griffin, Dept. Head of Engineering Education, as well as other engineering department staff were given a tour of the Victor Tango Lab today. The lab visit not only served as an opportunity to educate, but also as an opportunity to discuss other uses for the technology. With all the advances our team is making in vehicle hardware, sensor fusion, and artificial intelligence, there are many problems that our team members could potentially help solve.

VT Class Visits Lab

Oct 8, 2007
The Victor Tango team volunteered to give a lab tour and presentation to Mechanical Engineering students at Virginia Tech. With all of the of the team members either being full time students or having strong ties to academia, the team highly values the dissemination of information. Team Victor Tango's lab, referred to jokingly as the "bot cave" by team members, is an excellent setting for learning. There are two vehicles fully outfitted for autonomous capabilities, a third vehicle in the process of being converted, and a plethora of sensors and actuators decorating the shelves.

The students were part of an Advanced Instrumentation class taught by Dr. Al Wicks. The main focus of the visit was to discuss the vehicles' sensor suites, detailing the types of transducers, signal processing techniques, and methods of sensor data fusion. There are three major sensors that the vehicle uses: Laser Range Finders (LRFs), cameras, and Global Positioning System (GPS). LRFs, or LIDAR, sensors are used mostly for obstacle detection and road contour detection (curbs and berms). These sensors send out laser beams that reflect off of surfaces and return to the sensor. By knowing the time it takes for the beam to return, the sensor can figure out within millimeters how far away the surface is. The team is taking advantage of advancements in sensor technology made by IBEO, which now provide the ability to scan in 3D and differentiate between cars, people, and static objects such as large debris and curbs. Cameras are used mostly for lane detection, similar to lane departure warning systems currently available in high end vehicles. GPS is the main method used to localize the vehicle. The GPS used by the team is far more accurate than the TomTom sitting on your dashboard. While most commercially available systems have accuracy in the vicinity of 2 meters, the team's Novatel unit can locate the vehicle within 0.1 meters of its actual latitude and longitude. By combining these sensors, in addition to a few others, Odin is able to perceive his surroundings in an incredibly accurate manner- probably better than many of the people you pass in your car on a day to day basis.

Endurance Testing

Sept 29-30, 2007
With the National Qualification Event (NQE) less than a month away, the team is working extra hard to put the finishing touches on Odin, and make final software adjustments. Once again, team Victor Tango was granted the opportunity to test at the Roanoke Police Department driver training facility. This time, it was Odin's endurance that was the subject of testing. Odin was run continuously for many hours in autonomous mode.

Up until this point, the majority of testing has been targeted at specific software components and functionalities. In theory, if all these individual tests are completed successfully, there should be no problem with running full missions that require several functionalities. However, in reality, this is rarely the case. Odin experienced some bugs that had not been seen before. Whenever a problem was encountered, the team is able to mark a time stamp associated with that error. Later the team can go back and look through all the software's messaging logs and determine the source of the error.

While the this was the first major endurance test on the vehicle, lots of endurance testing has been preformed in the team's 3D simulator. The important difference between the testing in the simulator and testing on the vehicle is the quality of the Odin's perception of the environment. The simulator cannot account for the sensor inaccuracies that are unavoidable with real testing.