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Team ENSCO Advances to Next Round of DARPA Grand Challenge

Falls Church, Va., June 13, 2005 — ENSCO, Inc., a diversified research, development and information technology company, today announced that it has been selected as a semifinalist in the second annual Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenge. The Grand Challenge, an autonomous ground vehicle event, covers 150 miles of rugged, varied terrain across the Mojave Desert.

Team ENSCO was among 40 teams selected from a field of 118 teams. This will be the second year that Team ENSCO competes in this unique event. Last year’s vehicle, DAVID, competed in the final round, successfully navigated a portion of the course, and finished in eighth place.

“We are proud to be a part of the 2005 challenge,” said Team ENSCO Leader, Gary Carr. “Our team has made significant improvements from last year’s technology. This year we’re seasoned and ready to compete.”

For the 2005 Challenge, Team ENSCO will be competing with a completely new and extremely agile vehicle which is appropriately named DEXTER. DEXTER is a custom-made desert racer specifically built by Lothringer Engineering and designed by ENSCO’s experts. With a lightweight chassis, long suspensions and hydraulic steering, the new vehicle skillfully accomplishes the highly complex tasks of autonomous robotics.

DEXTER, a Deployable EXtreme Terrain Enabled Robot, is the name for Team ENSCO’s new autonomous ground vehicle. Team ENSCO chose DEXTER because it is derived from dexterous, meaning having mental skill or adroitness, and dexterity, meaning readiness and grace in physical activity.

“Technically, this project is about autonomous navigation, capturing and representing the dimensions of the world in a computer, and planning a navigable path to successfully reach an objective,” explained Mr. Carr. “Our goal was to develop a vehicle that was quick, agile and stable. DEXTER embodies these characteristics.”

DEXTER has been designed to travel autonomously more than 175 miles at speeds of 35 mph. DEXTER’s system architecture allows for sensors interchangeability and high speed operation using six high-speed computers for obstacle detection with path planning and two real-time computers for vehicle control and guidance. And, most importantly, DEXTER’s navigation uses Dual High Precision Differential GPS with complimentary inertial systems, dead reckoning, and local object references.

ENSCO’s autonomous ground vehicle technology is a complex technology involving sophisticated systems integration of sensors, lasers, LIDAR, stereo cameras and software. ENSCO experts have uniquely linked all these technologies together to perform effectively and efficiently in rugged environments under all conditions. Leading up to the next semifinalist competition, our vehicle will be tested in not only desert conditions, but snow, rain and mountainous terrain as well.

About Team ENSCO

Team ENSCO is a volunteer group of ENSCO’s brightest researchers and engineers. They are joined by friends of ENSCO employees and students from Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology. ENSCO has placed special emphasis on the learning aspects of its participation, focusing on team building, encouraging entrepreneurialism and working on a world-class problem of significant value to our nation.

Companies that have donated equipment and software to the project include National Instruments, MathWorks, Expert Choice, Inc., SICK, Vicor, Whelen Engineering, OminStar and Optima Batteries.

About ENSCO, Inc.

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.
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