Revved up for desert action

Karl Stol works on the robot.

A Kiwi answer to robotic-driven cars is well on its way to taking part in a Nevada desert race after winning an entrepreneurship challenge at Auckland University this week.

Although student-owned company Grand Challenge qualified for the quarter-finals of the US Pentagon-sponsored robotic race this year, a lack of funds put paid to their chances.

But winning the top prize in the Spark competition will help to ensure their presence at the race next year and hasten plans to commercialise the concept.

Spark is a student-led initiative run with the University of Auckland Business School and business incubator the Icehouse.

The team, led by Grant Sargent and Glen Slater, has spent most of the year building the prototype robot that can drive a vehicle in the place of a human.

Named after Kupe, who Polynesian history credits with being the first navigator to have discovered New Zealand, the robot sits on the front seat and plugs into the cigarette lighter. It has a leg to push the foot pedals and an arm to turn the steering wheel.

Grand Challenge was formed in November, first to compete in the DARPA Grand Challenge, the 290km race inspired by a US Congressional aim to have one-third of all US military ground vehicles unmanned by 2015. The robots would be specifically used to drive convoys in war-torn, diseased or danger areas.

Sargent, a full-time technician at the university's robotics lab, heard about the race for the first time last year and arrived in southern California just in time for the post-race autopsy to glean as much information as he could from competitors.

No team was successful at completing the distance. The best team from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh managed to complete just 12km of the course before its US$5 million car broke down.

Believing nothing in the challenge was too technical for a Kiwi team to overcome, Sargent returned home fired up to form a team for the next event.

He rallied a team of PhD students and staff, "passing around the hat", promising that although they were unlikely to see their money again, they were in for a great ride.

Slater, who lectures part-time at a business school in the city, joined the challenge soon after, having had a fleeting meeting with Sargent during his earlier days in the Navy.

The pair lead a core team of five, and a wider team of up to 50 volunteers, who worked over the summer developing Kupe.

The first prototype was made from parts salvaged from derelict cars, costing $12 all up.

The cost has since reached the tens of thousands - and has been funded entirely by the "poor students" who fitted in hundreds of hours of work around their studies.

They have not been daunted by the size and resources of some of their global competitors, many of whom are bankrolled by multinationals and sponsored with $100,000 cars. Instead, Grand Challenge has used its own cars and filmed its qualifying entry in a downtown supermarket carpark with a borrowed Grand Cherokee Jeep.

Sargent said having no money had been useful, as well as painful.

"We don't have the access to the technology they have, or the dollars to throw at the problems, so we have to think smart."

Forty teams are facing off at the semi-finals in Nevada this week and half of those will compete for the US$2 million prize in the October 8 final.

The team was "absolutely gutted" it didn't get the chance to prove its technology to the Pentagon.

But the setback helped them realise they had been too focused on technical aspects and had not given enough attention to building the company and commercialising the idea.

Entering Spark forced them to focus on their structure, business plans and marketing.

Part of the win will see them take up residence in the Icehouse, where they will concentrate on commercialising the concept - which they aim to do by April.

They believe the robot has potential applications for warehouse forklifts, trucks, tractors and bulldozers - offering the benefits of precision and 24-hour operations.

Eventually, it could be used in private cars, allowing passengers to catch up on emails while the robot drives them to work.

A lot of Grand Challenge's ambition rests on funding and it will be working hard to source venture capital, hoping to have its first investor in place by the end of the year.

The ultimate robot reality show

* 43 contestants are battling for a spot in a US Government-sponsored desert race intended to speed the development of unmanned military combat vehicles.

* The reward? US$2 million ($2.9 million).

* The autonomous robotic vehicles began competing on Wednesday in the first of a series of qualifying rounds at the California Speedway.

* Half will advance to the October 8 starting line of the Grand Challenge.

* The semifinals will test the vehicles' ability to cover a 3.2km stretch of the track without a human driver or remote control.

* Participants ranging from souped-up SUVs to military behemoths will be graded on how well they can self-drive on rough road, make sharp turns and avoid obstacles while relying on GPS navigation and sensors, radar, lasers and cameras that feed information to computers.

* During last year's semifinals, no vehicle completed the course in the first day. Eventually, only seven entrants completed a flat 2.25km obstacle course, but eight others that failed were allowed to advance.

* Organisers expect most vehicles to finish the qualifying course this year.

* The Grand Challenge is sponsored by the research arm of the Pentagon known as the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, which is spending US$9 million on this year's event.

* The competition is part of the Pentagon's efforts to have a third of the military's ground vehicles unmanned by 2015 to fulfil a congressional mandate.

* This year's race will cover about 240km of desert and mountainous terrain looping to and from Primm, Nevada.

* The first vehicle to traverse the course in less than 10 hours wins. If no one finishes - a possible outcome - Darpa might sponsor another competition.

* Last year's inaugural race in the Mojave Desert ended without a winner when all the entrants broke down before the finish line. The best performer was a converted Humvee built by Carnegie Mellon University, which travelled just 12km before having engine trouble.