Press Releases
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Erika Christ
703-619-0306
erikachristpr@aol.com
Expert Choice®, a leading provider of enterprise portfolio analysis solutions, is pleased to announce its sponsorship of Team ENSCO in the 2005 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenge—a 175-mile autonomous, off-road vehicle race which is scheduled to take place on Oct. 8, 2005 in Primm, Nevada.
Team ENSCO—a volunteer group of ENSCO’s brightest researchers and engineers, as well as friends of ENSCO employees, and students at Thomas Jefferson High School of Science & Technology—designed an autonomous ground vehicle named DEXTER (Deployable EXtreme Terrain Enabled Robot), which was then custom built by Lothringer Engineering for the Grand Challenge. As a sponsor, Expert Choice donated its flagship decision support software, EC 11, to the cause, and it was used by Team ENSCO to help select the desert-racer-style body design for the vehicle.
“We greatly appreciate the software and other equipment that have been donated to our project by companies such as Expert Choice,” said Brian Mee, deputy team leader of Team ENSCO. “With the assistance of Expert Choice’s decision support software, we were able to select a vehicle design that is both innovative and agile, and that has successfully gotten us to the final stage of the DARPA Grand Challenge,” he added.
Team ENSCO was one of 23 finalists that qualified to participate in the Grand Challenge based on its performance during the National Qualification Event at the California Speedway in Fontana, Calif. from Sept. 27 to Oct. 5, 2005. They had been one of 43 semifinalist teams selected to participate in the qualifiers from a field of 118 initial entrants.
DARPA Grand Challenge 2005 is a field test of robotic ground vehicles for the purpose of advancing autonomous vehicle technology to help save American lives on the battlefield. The vehicles must travel approximately 150 miles over rugged desert roads using only onboard sensors and navigation equipment to find and follow the route and avoid obstacles. DARPA will award $2 million to the team whose autonomous vehicle successfully completes the 2005 route the fastest within a 10-hour time period. All vehicles are developed without government funding. For more information about the DARPA Grand Challenge, please visit the official Web site .
About ENSCO
ENSCO, Inc. provides engineering, science and advanced technology solutions for the defense, security, transportation, environment, aerospace and intelligent automation industries. Founded in 1969, ENSCO is a $100 million, 800-person privately owned corporation. Headquartered in Falls Church, Va., ENSCO has major offices in Springfield, Va., Endicott, N.Y., Melbourne and Cocoa Beach, Fla., and field offices around the United States and in Beijing, China. For additional information, visit ENSCO, Inc.’s Web site at www.ensco.com.
About Expert Choice
Headquartered in Arlington, Va., Expert Choice, Inc. is a leading provider of enterprise portfolio analysis solutions. Founded in 1983, the company helps business and government organizations around the world with their portfolio analysis, project prioritization and resource allocation challenges. Today, more than 15,000 individuals in 60 countries, including 25 percent of the Fortune 500 and half of U.S. federal government agencies, rely on Expert Choice to help them achieve improved business performance and greater ROI. For more information on Expert Choice, please visit expertchoice.com.