40 TEAMS IN SEMIFINALS OF ROBOT CAR RACE.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

PALMDALE - Forty teams from 14 states and Canada, but none from the Antelope Valley, were announced Monday to compete in the semifinal round of the $2 million robotic car race across the Mojave Desert.

The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced a field of teams that includes a high school, several universities, corporations and amateur technology buffs to compete in the qualifying round at the California Speedway in Fontana between Sept. 27 and Oct. 5. The qualifying round is intended to select 20 teams to compete in the Oct. 8 desert race.

As with the inaugural event last March on a 150-mile Barstow-to-Primm, Nev. route, the vehicles will attempt to navigate a challenging course over varying terrain without human intervention. The team whose vehicle travels the course the fastest, if it makes it under the 10-hour deadline, will win $2 million.

The Mojave Desert race is aimed at advancing technologies for future driverless ground combat vehicles and at reaching out to businesses and individuals who might not otherwise try to do business with the defense agency.

At last year's inaugural event, all 15 of the competitors broke down or crashed within the first eight miles.

In all, 195 teams from 37 states and three foreign countries applied to compete in this year's event. The list of applications was whittled down to 118 and then, after site visits by DARPA personnel in May, the 40 finalists were selected.

Four teams were from the north Los Angeles County area, but none made the final cut to 40. Those four north county teams were RJW Engineering Solutions of Palmdale; Rogue of Acton; ``R'' Junk Works of Lancaster; and KNetX of Quartz Hill.

During the site visits, DARPA officials evaluated the capability of each team's vehicle to autonomously navigate a narrow 200-meter course that contained turns and randomly placed obstacles.

``The high quality of vehicle performance that we witnessed during the site visits is truly impressive,'' said DARPA Director Anthony Tether. ``We are thrilled with the sheer excitement about developing autonomous ground vehicles that the Grand Challenge has sparked among people from all walks of life. It was difficult to winnow the field from the 118 great teams to only 40; the competition was tough.''

Among the teams will be a group from Palos Verdes High School that will be competing with a modified Acura MDX called ``Doom Buggy'' and a team from the California Institute of Technology, which has a modified Ford van dubbed ``Alice.''

DARPA is the same agency that spurred the development of the F-117A stealth fighter and the robotic Global Hawk reconnaissance aircraft.

Jim Skeen, [phone]

james.skeen(at)dailynews.com