Paul Temple, SGI Federal's senior business development manager, added: "We are excited to contribute to an innovative new class of robotic vehicles through Prism's ability to rapidly digest and visualize multi-terabyte terrain data sets stored by the TP9500 array, giving the Red Team a powerful tool and groundbreaking insights for planning its race routes. The Red Team's productivity has been transformed by Prism's lightning fast ability to load data sets at multi-gigabyte-per-second rates that will no doubt serve the team well in the 'golden hour' before the DARPA Grand Challenge when time is of the essence."

The Field Narrows

The 40-member Red Team, which includes sponsors such as AM General, Boeing, Caterpillar, Intel, SGI, and SAIC, will compete in this year's Grand Challenge with two entries based on AM General's Humvee vehicle design. The Red Team's "Sandstorm" vehicle will return to defend its 2004 distance and speed record, and a new H1 design dubbed "H1ghlander" will also compete.

The Red Team’s new H1 design dubbed "H1ghlander" is a major contender in the 175-mile DARPA-sponsored race across the Mojave Desert.

In June, DARPA announced that 40 teams including the Red Team were selected to advance to the semifinals of the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge autonomous ground vehicle competition. DARPA selected the semifinalists from a field of 118 entrants (all vehicles are developed without government funding). The Red Team's H1ghlander and Sandstorm vehicles both made the cut and have been invited to participate in a week of qualifications in late September and early October at the California Speedway in Fontana that will narrow the field to 20 competitors for the winner-take-all race on October 8.

If the 2004 Grand Challenge is any indication, the Red Team is seen as the frontrunner for this year's competition. Last year's race in March 2004 consisted of a field test of autonomous ground vehicles that ran from Barstow, Calif. to Primm, Nev. and offered a $1 million prize. Although in last year's Grand Challenge race no vehicles were able to complete the difficult desert route, the Red Team's Sandstorm vehicle traveled 7.4 miles before getting stuck; no other entry got as far.

For additional information, visit Carnegie Mellon University's Red Team website.