A Robotic Dune Buggy Named Tommy
TS-3966

Autonomous mobile robots are often considered the subject of science fiction or the result of costly R&D projects or are limited to small bot experiments. The DARPA Grand Challenge, held in October 2005, raised awareness of advances made in sophisticated autonomous robotics by offering a $2 million prize for fielding an autonomous vehicle that could be the first and fastest to traverse a vast stretch of desert terrain at mission-relevant speeds. This presentation is a follow-up to last year's popular 2005 JavaOne^SM conference presentation on Tommy, a completely autonomous silver egg-shaped dune buggy that was one of 40 robots invited to participate in the DARPA Grand Challenge events. Tommy is based entirely on Java technology. Tommy's sensing, planning, actuation, and real-time feedback control are all based on a combination of Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) and Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME). The session provides a description and video footage of Tommy as well as a discussion of Tommy's Java technology-based design. It also tells the extraordinary story of a unique team's experiences at the DARPA Grand Challenge. The session ends with a discussion of Tommy's evolved platform and how others can develop autonomous robots now, using Java technology.

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