IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2008 - 35

PHOTO COURTESY OF ANNIE LIEN

very valuable. In order to make this work
on a sports car, we solved engineering
problems that no one else had to grapple
with. So we felt like we came a long way
toward miniaturization of the whole
autonomous vehicle problem."

Moving Light-Years Ahead
Randall's husband Grayson, the team's
leader, founded Insight Racing five years
ago, and last October, its little car competed in DARPA's "Grand Challenge." The
mission of DARPA, the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency, part of the U.S.
Department of Defense, is to develop technology with military applications. When,
in 2001, Congress mandated that at least a
third of all military vehicles be
autonomous by 2015, the agency responded with a series of races, all with milliondollar prizes and open to anyone who
could build a driverless robotic car. "They
needed to move autonomous vehicle
development ahead faster than it was
going," says Mary Ellen Randall. "Since
anybody could sign up and work on this
problem, there was a lot of development in
a short period of time by a lot of different
creative minds, and the whole technology
moved light-years ahead very quickly."
In the first Grand Challenge, held in
the Mojave Desert in 2004, no vehicle
made it more than eight miles past the
start. Back then, Insight Racing was using
a 1987 Chevy Suburban that members of
the team had chipped in to buy, and while
it was invited to compete in the national
qualifying event, "because we didn't have
enough funding, a business decision was
made not to go," Randall says. "We could
have tried to raise the money to go out to
the race, but there was only a one-year
development cycle, and we didn't feel that
was adequate for someone to be able to
win it.... So instead of spending money
on the trip, the team said we're going to
focus on further development of the car."
The decision paid off. In 2005, the
Suburban's scores placed it 12th out of
196 cars in a second desert challenge;
five vehicles finished the 132-mile race.

Team members expose the inner workings of the AnnieWay robotic car.

An Urban Challenge

and it gives them something they can't
get in the classroom ... . There are so
DARPA then moved the competition to
many life lessons you get out of a project
the site of the former George Air Force
like this-not to mention the technical
Base in Victorville, California, in 2007,
things that you learn," says Randall.
and raised the stakes. It created an
"Urban Challenge" that required entrants
to build cars that could obey traffic laws,
Friendly Competition
navigate obstacles, park themselves, and
"When you're at the competition, what's
avoid other moving vehicles successfulreally nice is that's where you have a
ly-and as quickly as possible. (See box
chance to kind of collaborate, to go and
"A Robotic Chauffeur in the City")
view what everybody else did with their
Insight Racing's Lotus, the smallest car
car. Because we're all housed together in
in the competition, was a semifinalist.
a pit area, it's easy to walk from one team
It was an impressive finish for
to the next to the next, and
the all-volunteer Insight Racalthough you can't get into
ing team, made up of
what they did softwareDARPA
industry engineers,
wise, you can see
responded to a
members of the
where they mounted
North
Carolina
sensors, what kinds
Congressional madate
State University
for autonomous military of sensors they
community, and a
used, and you get
vehicles by holding
number of engito talk to all kinds
driverless robotic car
neering students. "I
of people who are
races for milliongot involved to work
like-minded, who
with students, to give
have a common
dollar prizes.
them a real-world projinterest. So it's a really
ect to work on. It has a
high-energy event. I think
large scope and it's long term,
the students were surprised

SUMMER 2008

IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2008