By the dawn of the new millennium, robotics has undergone a major transformation in scope and dimensions. This expansion has been brought about by the maturity of the field and the advances in its related technologies. From a largely dominant industrial focus, robotics has been rapidly expanding into the challenges of the human world. The new generation of robots is expected to safely and dependably co-habitat with humans in homes, workplaces, and communities, providing support in services, entertainment, education, healthcare, manufacturing, and assistance. Beyond its impact on physical robots, the body of knowledge robotics has produced is revealing a much wider range of applications reaching across diverse research areas and scientific disciplines, such as: biomechanics, haptics, neurosciences, virtual simulation, animation, surgery, and sensor networks among others. In return, the challenges of the new emerging areas are proving an abundant source of stimulation and insights for the field of robotics. It is indeed at the intersection of disciplines that the most striking advances happen. The goal of the series of Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics (STAR) is to bring, in a timely fashion, the latest advances and developments in robotics on the basis of their significance and quality. It is our hope that the wider dissemination of research developments will stimulate more exchanges and collaborations among the research community and contribute to further advancement of this rapidly growing field.

This ebook presents a magnificent compilation of authoritative Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) documents providing an excellent, up-to-date overview of the research work of this famed agency, along with information on doing business with DARPA. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's mission calls for radical innovation for national security, searching worldwide for revolutionary high-payoff ideas. "Doing business with DARPA" includes: Getting you ideas considered by a DARPA program manager, broad agency announcements, program solicitations, small business innovation research (SBIR), and toolkit of agreement instruments. Contents of this digest include: Mission, Management, and Organization; DARPA's Role; Shaping Programs; Major Accomplishments;Transitioning Technologies; Current Strategic Thrusts; Robust, Secure, Self-Forming Networks; Detection, Precision ID, Tracking, and Destruction of Elusive Targets; Urban Area Operations; Advanced Manned and Unmanned Systems; Detection, Characterization, and Assessment of Underground Structures; Space; Increasing the Tooth to Tail Ratio; Bio-Revolution; Core Technologies; Quantum Science and Technology; Bio-Info-MicroMaterials; Power and Energy; Microsystems; Information Technology; Mathematics; Manufacturing Science and Technology; Lasers; Strategy and Programs in Context; Strategic Thrusts Supporting Quadrennial Defense Review Priorities; Programs and Budget Supporting DARPA's Strategic Thrusts; Special Assistant for Technology Transition; DARPA Operational Liaisons and Representatives DARPA's organization; Timelines and investments in science and technology; DARPA's role in science and technology; DARPA's Basic Research funding; Total S&T funding in DoD and DARPA; DARPA's senior leadership and technical program managers have visited numerous; military bases, commands, training centers, and other Defense facilities; Key DARPA accomplishments spanning more than four decades; DARPA transition methods; Bridging the Network-Centric Operations gap between strategic/operational and tactical levels of deployment and warfare; Small Unit Operations Situational Awareness System (SUO SAS); FCS-C Gateway enables network interoperability; XG Communications program; Optical and Radio Frequency Combined Link Experiment provides links to forces fixed and on-the-move; Dynamic Multi-Terabit Core Optical Networks: Architecture, Protocols, Control and Management; Chip-Scale Atomic Clock: ultra-miniaturized, low-power, atomic time and frequency reference units; DARPA's goal: eliminate barriers between Intelligence (J-2) and Operations (J-3); Networked operations... Figure 18: A composite image of a tank under trees formed from observations by a ladar sensor; aids help manage and adjust sensor routes to cover moving targets; Wasp micro air vehicle; Command Post of the Future; Warfighters in a DARPA Training Superiority program classroom; Unmanned Vehicles - the increasing challenge of autonomy; A-160 vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) unmanned air vehicle (UAV); The winner, 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge - Stanford's Stanley; Cave entrance; Underground facility; DARPA's space thrust; Falcon program's Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle; Falcon Small Launch Vehicle (SpaceX's Falcon I); Major themes supporting enhanced decision-making; Personalized Assistant that Learns (PAL); HPCS accomplishments, plans, and performance objectives; Global Autonomous Language Exploitation; Bio-inspired "Big Dog" quadruped robot is being developed as a "mule" that can traverse difficult terrain; Exoskeleton; Schematic of 3-D circuit employing advanced functionality in each layer and reducing; the length of critical signal paths; DARPA's Strategic Thrusts and QDR Priorities. This is a privately authored news service and educational publication of Progressive Management.

By the dawn of the new millennium, robotics has undergone a major transformation in scope and dimensions. This expansion has been brought about by the maturity of the field and the advances in its related technologies. From a largely dominant industrial focus, robotics has been rapidly expanding into the challenges of the human world. The new generation of robots is expected to safely and dependably co-habitat with humans in homes, workplaces, and communities, providing support in services, entertainment, education, healthcare, manufacturing, and assistance. Beyond its impact on physical robots, the body of knowledge robotics has produced is revealing a much wider range of applications reaching across diverse research areas and scientific disciplines, such as: biomechanics, haptics, neurosciences, virtual simulation, animation, surgery, and sensor networks among others. In return, the challenges of the new emerging areas are proving an abundant source of stimulation and insights for the field of robotics. It is indeed at the intersection of disciplines that the most striking advances happen. The goal of the series of Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics (STAR) is to bring, in a timely fashion, the latest advances and developments in robotics on the basis of their significance and quality. It is our hope that the wider dissemination of research developments will stimulate more exchanges and collaborations among the research community and contribute to further advancement of this rapidly growing field.

Abstract: This thesis presents an obstacle avoidance strategy designed to meet the demands of the 2007 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Urban Challenge. The central theme of this work is the combination of the reactive and the global motion planning techniques to achieve an efficient and robust obstacle avoidance module (OAM). The aim of the OAM is to navigate the autonomous ground vehicle (AGV) robustly and without any collisions in an outdoor urban environment using the local sensory information. The OAM attempts to alleviate the problems faced by purely reactive approaches and provides an obstacle-free navigation in unknown and complicated environments. The motion commands generated by the OAM are: a smooth collision-free path constructed using the Cubic Bézier Polynomials and a longitudinal speed at which the path needs be followed. Furthermore, the OAM is enhanced by the capabilities which allow the AGV to navigate safely among the moving traffic. The proposed OAM was tested in simulation extensively to validate its capabilities and to improve its overall performance. A number of challenging outdoor obstacle fields were constructed to test the functionalities of the OAM. The OAM was successfully integrated on the Ohio State University Autonomous City Transport (OSU-ACT) vehicle which competed in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. Finally, the OAM demonstrated its reliability and the robustness by completing all the given tasks successfully in the National Qualification Event (NQE) of the Urban Challenge. The main focus of this thesis is on the overall algorithm structure and the demonstration of its capability using simulation and the experimental results. Furthermore, the challenges associated with the motion planning of nonholonomic robots, with sensor limitations and the external disturbances are discussed.

The DARPA Grand Challenge was a landmark in the field of robotics: a race by autonomous vehicles through 132 miles of rough Nevada terrain. It showcased exciting and unprecedented capabilities in robotic perception, navigation, and control. The event took place in October 2005 and drew teams of competitors from academia and industry, as well as many garage hobbyists. This book presents fifteen technical papers that describe each team's driverless vehicle, race strategy, and insights. As a whole, they present the state of the art in autonomous vehicle technology and offer a glimpse of future technology for tomorrow’s driverless cars.

The authors have done a masterful job of charting the important story of DARPA, one of the key catalysts of technological innovation in US recent history. By plotting the development, achievements and structure of the leading world agency of this kind, this book stimulates new thinking in the field of technological innovation with bearing on how to respond to climate change, pandemics, cyber security and other global problems of our time. The DARPA Model provides a useful guide for governmental agency and policy leaders, and for anybody interested in the role of governments in technological innovation. —Dr. Kent Hughes, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars This volume contains a remarkable collection of extremely insightful articles on the world’s most successful advanced technology agency. Drafted by the leading US experts on DARPA, it provides a variety of perspectives that in turn benefit from being presented together in a comprehensive volume. It reviews DARPA’s unique role in the U.S. innovation system, as well as the challenges DARPA and its clones face today. As the American model is being considered for adoption by a number of countries worldwide, this book makes a welcome and timely contribution to the policy dialogue on the role played by governments in stimulating technological innovation. — Prof. Charles Wessner, Georgetown University The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has played a remarkable role in the creation new transformative technologies, revolutionizing defense with drones and precision-guided munitions, and transforming civilian life with portable GPS receivers, voice-recognition software, self-driving cars, unmanned aerial vehicles, and, most famously, the ARPANET and its successor, the Internet. Other parts of the U.S. Government and some foreign governments have tried to apply the ‘DARPA model’ to help develop valuable new technologies. But how and why has DARPA succeeded? Which features of its operation and environment contribute to this success? And what lessons does its experience offer for other U.S. agencies and other governments that want to develop and demonstrate their own ‘transformative technologies’? This book is a remarkable collection of leading academic research on DARPA from a wide range of perspectives, combining to chart an important story from the Agency’s founding in the wake of Sputnik, to the current attempts to adapt it to use by other federal agencies. Informative and insightful, this guide is essential reading for political and policy leaders, as well as researchers and students interested in understanding the success of this agency and the lessons it offers to others.