Abstract
Carnegie Mellon's computerized Humvee “Sandstorm,” shown during a pre-race trial run.
Not so fast, not so far
Fifteen autonomous ground vehicles rolled out to the starting line in the desert outside Barstow, California, on March 13. None rolled past the finish line 142 miles away in Primm, Nevada. In fact, none made it past mile 8 of the Grand Challenge, a robotic off-road rally with a $1 million prize for the team whose vehicle completed the course the fastest and in less than 10 hours.
The Grand Challenge was created by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to accelerate the development of autonomous ground combat vehicles. (See “DARPA's Robocar Race,” July/August 2003 Bulletin.) By bringing robotics, racing, and amateur inventing enthusiasts together with academia, business, and technology, DARPA hoped to inject some creativity into its so-far-fruitless attempts at turning one-third of all military ground transports driverless by 2015.
Eighty-six teams–ranging from a group of robot hobbyists working under the name Team Phantasm, to Carnegie Mellon University's Red Team–submitted technical papers by the October 14, 2003 deadline. Entries ranged from a souped-up golf cart to Carnegie Mellon's reconditioned Humvee, dubbed “Sandstorm.”
After evaluating proposals last year and making some on-site inspections of entrants' facilities, DARPA pared the entries down to 25 teams (only 15 later qualified for the actual race). On the day of the event, just hours before the 6:30 a.m. scheduled start time, DARPA passed out CD-ROMs with global positioning coordinates outlining the exact course.
That's when the event turned into an unmanned, terrestrial version of Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. Starting times were staggered to minimize collisions on the course. Sandstorm, the pre-race favorite, roared out of the gates and covered 5 miles in 15 minutes. But at 7.4 miles, it got caught on a berm, and its front tires caught fire.
“I was very excited that the Red Team made it so far. That was quite an achievement at the speeds their vehicle was traveling,” says Dave van Gogh, a professor of mechanical engineering who led a team of undergraduates from the California Institute of Technology (CalTech).
Carnegie Mellon's results turned out to be the best of the day. “SciAutonics II,” a collaboration between Rockwell Scientific employees and outside consultants, made it 6.7 miles before getting stuck against an embankment. Team ENSCO's modified all-terrain vehicle flipped on the first sharp turn less than a quarter of a mile from the starting line. Axion Racing's Jeep Cherokee “wandered in circles, its steering wheel moving side to side and horn sounding pitifully” (Washington Post, March 14). Palos Verde High School's Acura sport utility vehicle crashed into a concrete barrier in the starting area. The brakes on Virginia Tech's modified utility cart locked up before it even got out of the gate.
In all, seven vehicles lasted less than a mile and another two withdrew before the start. When you set your expectations low enough, however, any defeat can be turned into victory, and both racers and DARPA officials considered the results an unmitigated success.
The “CajunBot,” a homemade six-wheeler.
“Today was a most important first step in a long journey,” said DARPA Director Anthony Tether. “Although none of the vehicles completed the course … we learned a tremendous amount today about autonomous ground vehicle technology.”
“We're thrilled with what happened,” says Bruce Hall of Team Digital Auto Drive (DAD), whose Toyota pickup made it 6 miles. “Frankly, we exceeded our own expectations in being able to get as far as we did. This is new prototype technology. It's rough around the edges.”
The distances traveled don't reflect the achievements, the racers say. Going in, no one was sure any vehicle would make it out of the starting gates. Not only did six travel more than a mile, but the causes of many of the failures are turning out to be curable.
CalTech's modified Chevy Tahoe 4X4.
For example, CalTech's Chevy Tahoe, which veered off course at 1.3 miles and ran into a barbed wire fence, “had no capability of detecting barbed wire,” says van Gogh. “We also had no system to detect when we were commanding a velocity but not moving. [That] would have helped the vehicle realize it was stuck and pursue other options, [like] backing up.”
Team DAD had a similar problem. In a 5-mile-per-hour speed zone (each portion of the course had a speed limit), it voluntarily halted to wait for Sandstorm to be hauled off the course. When it received the all-clear to restart, it wouldn't move because it had stopped in back of some relatively small rocks and the gas it was getting to go 5-miles-per-hour wasn't enough to get it over the hump. All it needed was a tap on the accelerator.
“It was a simple loop to code in and we just didn't get to it,” says Hall.
Team DAD drove the course after the race and found other places where its programming was insufficient. Hall believes the team was maybe a week away from fixing those glitches, and he felt some of the other teams were probably in a similar position.
The CalTech and DAD teams are both eager for a second shot.
“No question about it,” says Hall. “In fact, we might put two entries in and follow the tortoise and the hare philosophy.”
DARPA officials have mentioned plans for a second race and are currently discussing timing. One thing is certain: The number of competitors is bound to grow. Two racers who failed to make the final cut have formed the International Robot Racing Federation in Las Vegas to create a civilian version of the Grand Challenge.
Robots, start your engines.
Paul Rogers is a Chicago-based writer.
Special snacks for super soldiers
Forget full-spectrum dominance. At the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), researchers are talking about “Metabolic Dominance,” a program started last year that aims “to enable superior physical and physiological performance of the warfighter by controlling energy metabolism on demand.” Translation: the creation of a superhuman soldier.
Attempting to transcend the corporeal demands of the human condition has been an enduring military objective at the Defense Department, especially at its research arm. “Transforming Fantasy” was actually the tag line for the DARPATech 2002 Symposium, in which the objectives for Metabolic Dominance were described. That visionary, sci-fi mindset illuminates some of DARPA's more futuristic-sounding goals for its warfighters–expanding memory potential, augmenting cognition, eliminating the need for sleep, and accelerating healing, not to mention figuring out a way for soldiers to go three to five days without eating while staying in top condition.
Scientists in the Metabolic Dominance program are investigating how to wring the “peak physical performance” from warfighters by controlling their body temperature, tweaking mitochondria in muscle cells to increase energy production, controlling nutrient availability to muscles, and working on managing fatigue.
An endurance drink mix.
The program is also examining the use of nutraceuticals (nutrient-enhanced foods) to help soldiers maintain strength and endurance. Along similar lines, the Combat Feeding Directorate at the army's Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Massachusetts, is working on a transdermal nutrient patch that soldiers slap on to soak up vitamins without having to pop pills.
Until the day when troops are finally liberated from the pesky necessity of eating, they will have to make do with rations. In the meantime, researchers at the Combat Feeding Directorate have been modifying standard MREs (meals, ready to eat) to give soldiers a little extra kick.
The “First Strike Ration” (FSR) is about half as heavy, and takes up about half as much space, as three standard MREs. The prototype FSR includes carbohydrate-enhanced “Zapplesauce,” meat-filled pitas that can stay edible for up to three years without refrigeration, two small “HooAH!” energy booster bars, as well as crackers, peanut butter, beef jerky, and dried fruit. The ultimate in finger food (no utensils to slow down soldiers), the FSR is designed to “enhance warfighter physical performance, mental acuity, and mobility,” according to Natick.
Robusterererer
Just in case (wink, wink) the defense Department decides to move ahead with its Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) program, Energy Department officials outlined what it would cost in next year's proposed budget. This has critics of the program concerned that Defense officials are already planning to move the program into its advanced phases.
“They've been slow-walking us on the details, but fast-tracking money in order to go full-steam ahead,” California Rep. Ellen Tauscher told the Los Angeles Times (March 11).
When the study for the “bunker-busting” bomb began, it was projected to cost $45 million over the course of three years. Funding requests outlined in the 2005 budget show that when the study phase is complete in 2006, it will have cost $71 million. This is before the project to adapt existing warheads into RNEPs continues into as-yet-unapproved segments of the serpentine development process.
It is only during the “development engineering” phase, the fourth in a series of seven steps laid out by Energy and Defense Department officials, that the real bomb-making gets under way. Simple as R&D? Not quite. Concept assessment; feasibility study and “option down select”; and design definition and cost study are only the first three steps in the process.
The total projected cost of taking the RNEP program into the fifth step of the process by 2009 would be $484.7 million.
“There is a clear military utility [for the RNEP program] which is why the Department of Defense asked us to study it,” Linton Brooks, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, told the House Armed Services committee in March 18 testimony.
Brooks said any decision to move the program forward past the study phase would be up to Congress and the president.
Airmen practice loading a 5,000-pound conventional “bunkerbuster” into a replica of a B-2 bomb bay.
Before Brooks's testimony, an Energy spokesman insisted that the budget forecasts did not mean that the decision to build the bomb had been made. “This is a placeholder budget…. We have to plan for every contingency,” he told the Times.
Not so, says Steven Aftergood, who edits Secrecy News for the Federation of American Scientists. “If they had placeholders for every funding scenario, they'd have to request an infinite amount of money,” Aftergood said. “This is an expression of intent to move ahead with an expanded program.”
In Brief
On February 21, the Los Angeles Times's Greg Miller reported that the Senate Intelligence Committee's Republican leadership had asked the CIA and FBI–both of whose pre-Iraq War intelligence assessments were notably inaccurate–to provide their annual testimony on worldwide threats. But this year the committee snubbed the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, which called the pre-war situation much more accurately.
Private security consultants patrolling the streets of Iraq have a new bullet for their guns: the blended metal 5.66 millimeter round, sold by Le Mas, Ltd., of Arkansas. The bullet is “frangible,” meaning that it is able to travel through steel but not a human torso. Instead, it explodes inside the body, creating what an Army Times reporter called “untreatable wounds.” The army tested the rounds by firing them into cold gelatin, but declined to place an order because the bullets fail to wreak more havoc than the ammo it already has. Le Mas refutes the army tests and claims that the bullets' effectiveness can only be judged by blasting live animals (or pot roasts), and has posted pictures of the resulting carnage on its Web site (Ecologist, January).
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board decided in January that it did not approve of the Pantex nuclear weapons facility having used duct tape to hold together cracked high explosives (Amarillo Globe-News, January 23).
It's hard to know how many Iraqis are reading a notice posted on the CIA's Web site (cia.gov/cia/english_rewards.htm), but the CIA post includes a “secure online form” and promises of rewards (amounts not specified) for providing information about imminent attacks, weapons of mass destruction, wanted Ba'athist regime leaders, and various other miscreants.
Mock assaults are supposed to be conducted regularly at U.S. nuclear facilities–labs, weapons factories, and nuclear power reactors–to test their ability to withstand terrorist attack. These facilities lose to the attacking team about half the time, even though they often know in advance when a “surprise” test is scheduled (”The NRC's Dirty Little Secret,” May/June 2003 and “The Weapons Complex: Who's Guarding the Store?” January/February 2002 Bulletin). After 9/11, a number of tests were delayed while the facilities' needs were reevaluated, but the mock attacks are now supposed to resume. And maybe they will. But in mid-February, the Bush administration again delayed tests at Lawrence Liver-more National Laboratory, claiming that an official there had questioned whether the standard, military-issue smoke bombs to be used during the assault posed a health risk (Oakland Tribune, February 12).
Journalists who report on military matters are crazy about the “Early Bird,” an electronic clipping service provided by the Pentagon, mainly for the Defense Department, but made available to a number of reporters as well. It seemed that nearly every story that mentioned defense in any way would find its way into the “Bird” or one of its supplements. (Here at the Bulletin we treasure memories of the paper Bird, which used to arrive every day in the mail, the first page a jarring shade of yellow, emphasizing the importance of its stories.) But times change: These days, according to Howard Kurtz (Washington Post, February 9), the Bird is a little less inclusive. Last October staffers were ordered to omit any story critical of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
So how bad was the manipulation of intelligence before the Iraq war? When Brian Jones, formerly the head of the branch of Britain's Defence Intelligence Staff in charge of analyzing information on nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, told his superiors that the evidence did not justify the claims the government was making about Iraqi weapons, he was told there was secret evidence confirming the government case–but that the information was too sensitive to share with the experts (The Independent, February 4).
Former Defense Threat Reduction Agency Director Stephen Younger thinks the Pentagon should, for variety, arm some of its fleet of intercontinental ballistic missiles with conventional weapons–and soon. As reported by Amy Butler in the January 26 issue of Defense Daily, Younger said there were no technical barriers to his plan–“I'm not talking about 10-year development cycles, I'm talking 90 days.” And he didn't think much of the suggestion that a problem might arise if an adversary's early warning system picked up an impending attack soon after launch. Critics said the leaders of a targeted country might conclude they were under nuclear attack, and respond in kind. No problem, said Younger. “Give us an 800 number. We will call you shortly after the launch.”
War in space: the wish list
In 1998, the air force produced a colorful brochure, “SpaceCom 2020,” which laid out an expansive plan to achieve “full spectrum dominance of the battlespace.” Other services also talked about dominance in terms of the battlefield, but the air force's term was more encompassing–it meant dominating Earth through the control of space.
Ray gun and spaceships: An Anton Brzezinski science fiction illustration from 1953.
The premise seemed fanciful, predicated as it was on the idea that in only a few days or months a series of adversaries would be threatening the takeover of Earth orbit (the “space playing field is leveling rapidly,” as Space Command put it). Unless the air force moved quickly to place highly sophisticated U.S. weapons into near-Earth space, a nearly defenseless America would be at risk from enemies with amazing sci-fi-like capabilities.
Oh sure, Space Command admitted, it would be prepared, one way or another, to shoot the lights out of other countries' communications satellites (think of telephones going down all over Europe), but such simple defensive measures would not be enough to stem the alien tide.
As one learned more, though, it became clear that discouraging others from operating in space was not exactly what SpaceCom had in mind. What the air force really wanted was the fulfillment of a near-biblical idea–that if the service were allowed to put its own ultra high-tech weapons in space it could become God-like–capable of looking down from the heavens above and choosing, or not, to strike anywhere on Earth with a bolt-from-the-blue attack. They called it “Global Engagement,” or “the combination of global surveillance of the Earth (see anything, any time), worldwide missile defense, and the potential ability to apply force from space.”
The plan remained hypothetical, though; President Bill Clinton's National Space Policy, like that of his predecessors, forbade the deployment of weapons in space.
Fast forward to this year. As Theresa Hitchens, vice president of the Center for Defense Information, points out, updates to the air force's grand design had not been made public lately–and anyone who wasn't paying close attention might have imagined that SpaceCom had calmed down a bit–even if Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was a big-time space-weapons enthusiast. But in mid-February, Hitchens found a document, the “U.S. Air Force Transformation Flight Plan,” dated November 2003, suggesting that the service's desire for world domination still burned bright.
The Transformation Flight Plan includes an ambitious weapons wish list. On that list are frequently discussed defense weapons–ground-based lasers (although now the plan is to add gigantic mirrors to concentrate and relay their power), and air-launched anti-satellite missiles. Then there are a variety of space vehicles needed to shuttle items into and around space, and the unpowered gliders those vehicles would carry. The gliders would be designed to deliver payloads worldwide from and through space “within one hour of tasking.” And for disrupting “enemy” communications, a constellation of U.S. satellites would be armed with highpower radio-frequency transmitters.
What is considered the Transformation Flight Plan's most far-fetched weapon idea involves “hypervelocity rod bundles” (a.k.a., “rods from God”). These piles of metal poles would be simply dropped on an unsuspecting target down below. But as Noah Schactman pointed out on the Wired.com Web site on February 20, unlike many of the other plans, which are simply overly ambitious and outrageously expensive, the rod bundles project could run into a little problem involving the laws of physics. Well-known weapons expert Richard Garwin points out that if delivered from high altitudes, the rods would melt as they entered the atmosphere. And if orbited at very low altitudes, they “could only deliver one-ninth the destructive energy per gram as a conventional bomb.”
Hitchens is concerned that the appearance of this document may signal that the current administration intends to change space policy. A number of critics say that introducing weapons into space will only launch a new arms race, and that the United States, which has more space assets than any potential adversary, would be the most vulnerable to attack.
Bush's nuclear FreedomCAR
In his 2003 State of the Union address, President George Bush proposed $1.2 billion in research funding “so that Americans can lead the world in developing clean, hydrogen-powered automobiles.” At the center of his vision: the “FreedomCAR.”
Touted as a way to reverse U.S. dependence on foreign oil and global warming, the car's dirty little secret is that putting millions of them on America's interstate highways may necessitate the construction of new nuclear power plants, something that has not occurred in the United States for decades.
General Motors showed its hydrogen-powered car to employees at a Dow Chemical plant in Freeport, Texas, in February.
“There's one factor the president isn't talking about: the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of new nuclear power plants his administration imagines making all that hydrogen,” Mark Baard reported in the May 28, 2003 Village Voice.
Could it be true? Could the Bush administration and Senate Republicans want to give billions of taxpayer dollars to the nuclear industry for new high-temperature, gas-cooled reactors that in theory will generate both electricity and hydrogen?
You bet. Entergy, the second-largest nuclear energy producer in the United States, hopes to break ground on its cogeneration “Freedom Reactor” in the next five years.
Dan Keuter, vice president of nuclear development for Entergy, claims that the only “practical way to produce large volumes of emission-free hydrogen is from advanced nuclear reactors” (Advanced Nuclear Power, April 2003). “The fact is a hydrogen economy only makes sense if you have a non-[greenhouse gas]-emitting source of hydrogen. That means using renewable energy and nuclear.”
And according to Keuter, renewables just aren't up to the task of generating the quantity of hydrogen the world is going to need. Market demand for hydrogen is forecast to quadruple by 2017, primarily for producing fertilizer, refining oil, and making methanol, methane, and other products. That estimate does not account for Freedom-CARs or home electricity.
Another problem is that most hydrogen is today produced by breaking down natural gas, which leads to climate change and increasing dependence on limited natural gas resources.
Ethanol, produced from corn, is another potential source of hydrogen, but current methods of extracting hydrogen from ethanol require large refineries and large quantities of fossil fuels.
University of Minnesota researchers say they have a solution: a prototype reactor small and efficient enough to heat small homes and power cars (Associated Press, February 13).
The reactor–of the non-nuclear variety–is a relatively small, 2-foot-tall apparatus of tubes and wires that creates hydrogen for a fuel cell, which generates power. The researchers envision people buying ethanol to power these cells, capable of producing 1 kilowatt of power, in their basements and garages.
For non-nuclear generated hydrogen to become a viable fuel source, something like the Minnesota basement reactor has to be developed into an affordable and readily available technology; at least that's what the American Physical Society's Panel on Public Affairs is saying. On March 1 it released a report stressing that major scientific breakthroughs are required for the president's initiative to succeed. “The most promising hydrogen-engine technologies require factors of 10 to 100 improvements in cost or performance in order to be competitive,” the report said.
And according to Peter Eisenberger, chairman of the committee that drafted the report, once all that hydrogen is generated, you still have to store the volatile gas. That's a “potential showstopper.”