Re: Great opportunity for Ada application

[David Marceau <davidmarceau@sympatico.ca>]

It seems the best horses are on 1)Lockheed Martin and 2)Boeing without
any competition.  I saw some fly by wire stuff uav/utv on tv the other
night on discovery concerning the making of the X-planes.

Whatever is competing, I think the config with the most strategic impact
will win and not the cheapest to mass-produce price.
I also think the config with the free non-used non-competition bonus
features will also add value if there is a tie :)  The rules are not
clear as to what happens if there is a tie.

Notice the section of COMPETITION AND REPAIRS:
"
Competition
The goal of this competition is for the race vehicle to complete the
course as fast as possible. 
Interfering with other race vehicles will not be allowed.  The following
will result in the
disqualification of a contestant:
Intentionally interfering with competing Race or Chase vehicles 
Intentionally interfering with competing operators 
Intentionally interfering, spoofing, jamming, or disturbing
communications used by
competitors or the race organizers 
Intentionally altering the terrain with the purpose of making it more
difficult for
competitors 

Refueling and Repairs
Autonomous refueling and repairs will be allowed at a checkpoint.  That
is, equipment for
refurbishing the race vehicle must be set-up at the check point prior to
the start of the race.  Other
than the E-Stop, no human (or other biological entity) may send commands
to or otherwise control
the equipment once the race begins.
"
Obviously fuel cells are important here :)

Can't interfere with other cars....hmmm I thought all is fair in love
and war.
Zapping another car before, during and after the competition without
getting caught seems to be still legal.
It's like doping in the olympics :)  All the intention disqualification
capabilities could be considered as an added-value bonus feature if
there is a tie.  If there is a tie, these added features could prove
their worth in the second round :)

A Top of the line utv system 
----------------------------
-spark, openravenscar(pedal to the metal solution foggy for me but I'm
sure ada gurus out there will opt for this)
-uav-lets or robofly-lets spurting out of the atv all individually
monitored via the atv to web-front-end.  This could be critical for the
last five seconds of allowed off-ground uav time if we consider a
uav-let/robofly as part of the uav :)  Nothing stops us from propelling
the uav-let as a projectile for the last five seconds to get to the
destination target :)

A not so thorough vision of what a econo-system could have
----------------------------------------------------------
aws(web front end).  The more creative/more value/better looking, the
more probably the ada team will win.  I have ideas up the yin yang for
this.(although most communication is not allowed does not mean it cannot
be implemented and not used during the competition).
or gtkada(non-web front end)
ada2nqc(control on-vehicle robot adamindstorm for wheel turning and
other motor controls maybe)
ada2nqc(maybe also for the wireless communication between on-vehicle and
web-front-end)
A#(.NET)/jgnat/j2me, adaCOM (control wireless communication between
on-vehicle and web-front-end) mix of commercial off the shelf and
open-source here maybe :)
Obviously other sensors/actuators will be here to.

That said I'll volunteer and contribute to any solution an ada team
would propose and learn from it as a gesture of good will to get an ada
coder job as an end result.  One catch: I am Canadian citizen.

Cheers,
David Marceau

David Botton wrote:
> 
> If some one wants to flip the bill, I'm in :-)
> 
> David Botton
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jerry Petrey @raytheon.com>" <"jdpetrey<NOSPAM>
> Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
> To: <comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2003 12:09 PM
> Subject: Great opportunity for Ada application
> 
> > DARPA is sponsoring a competition with a one million dollar prize for an
> > autonomous vehicle to transverse a course between L.A. and Las Vegas in
> 2004.
> > This would be a great opportunity for an Ada controlled entry.
> > See http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/ for details.
> > Perhaps there is some small company around that would like to undertake
> this
> > challenge and make a name for themselves and show what Ada can do.
> >
> >
> > Jerry
> > --
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -------
> >
> > -- Jerry Petrey
> > -- Senior Principal Systems Engineer - Navigation (GPS/INS), Guidance, &
> > Control
> > -- Raytheon Missile Systems          - Member Team Ada & Team Forth
> > -- NOTE: please remove <NOSPAM> in email address to reply
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -------
> >
> >
> >
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