This September the DARPA Grand Challenge competitors will again try to demonstrate the viability of autonomous land vehicles. You will recall that the first DARPA Grand Challenge ended with the best finisher only completing about 10 miles of the 200 mile course. This is obviously a difficult task. Meanwhile the folks at Woods Hole have been making much better progress with Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV). Their AUV, named Spray, was just sent on its second adventure. On March 23, 2005 it was launched from a location near Bermuda. It will be roaming the Gulf Stream until sometime in July when it will be retreived at another location near Bermuda.
