DARPA's Grand Challenge - the U.S. Military's $2 Million Race

DARPA is a U.S. military agency. The acronym stands for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. According to DARPA chief and Grand Challenge creator Tony Tether, the event was created to both develop "autonomous" military vehicles and to help interest "kids" in seeing "engineering and science as a career."

2004 DARPA Grand Challenge

In 2004, the first DARPA Grand Challenge was held in a 142-mile stretch of California's Mojave Desert outside of Barstow. Even a $1 million prize was offered, none was given because not one of the fifteen entrants finished the race. According to the event's race manager, the robot vehicles failed for a variety of reasons that included "stuck brakes, broken axles, rollovers and malfunctioning" GPS equipment.

2005 DARPA Grand Challenge

The second DARPA Grand Challenge in 2005 had better results along with a grand prize that was raised to $2 million. The second place prize was $1 million. Third place was $500,000. It was held on a 132-mile course near Primm, Nevada.

Five cars finished the race. The winner was "Stanley", a VW Touareg tricked-out by Stanford University's famed artificial intelligence lab with the cooperation of Volkswagen's Palo Alto R&D division. They offered three Touaregs for the Stanford team to experiment with. The second and third place winners came from Carnegie Mellon University, the team whose vehicle traveled the furthest in the first Grand Challenge. There were a total of 23 competitors in this race.

"Stanley" the winner was equipped with a GPS roof antenna, a laser range finder, a video camera, an onboard computer, and a photo sensor in the wheel well.

It's no accident that it was German native Sebastian Thrun, director of Stanford's artificial intelligence lab, who cultivated the lab's association with VW. One of the earliest successes with autonomous vehicles came from a program sponsored by the German military and Daimler-Benz where a Mercedes van was guided through a test track course at 20 mph.

2007 DARPA Grand Challenge

In 2007, DARPA held its third Grand Challenge. For this race, the driverless vehicles navigated through a mock urban neighborhood, simulating military supply vehicles in an urban combat zone. The sixty mile course was built on a closed military base. It included intersections and buildings, and the vehicles had to park and merge with traffic.

This event was spurred by the number of roadside bomb casualties in Iraq. Carnegie Mellon University's Chevy Tahoe, nicknamed "BOSS", was the first place winner. Stanford's VW Passat finished in second place. There were only 11 competing teams in this race, smaller than the first Grand Challenge.