Robot Cars
FIGURE 3. Autonomous DARPA Grand Challenge Ghostrider.
an autonomous vehicle contest in the Mojave Desert of
California with a $1 million prize. Starting from Barstow
and ending 150 miles later near Las Vegas during
March 8-13th, 2004, a field of 15 finalists, (including an
autonomous motorcycle shown in Figure 3) began the
race, after being weeded from a field of 100 applicants.
Most crashed seconds after starting; eight barely made
it a single mile; and the two best made it eight miles. It
was a start, and a lot was learned from this seemingly
group of ‘losers.’ I remember thinking back then that I
knew the race would be hard to complete, but afterwards
I wondered if anyone could complete it with 2004
technology.
Just a year and a half later on Sunday, October 8,
2005, a modified Volkswagen Touareg SUV/crossover
named Stanley (shown in Figure 4) from the Stanford
(University) Racing Team beat 23 other robotic cars on 132
miles of hot and unforgiving Nevada desert to claim a $2
million prize. Stanley used seven Pentium-class computers,
along with virtually the same sensor suites used by the
other entrants such as GPS, Lidar, and video pattern
FIGURE 5. Carnegie Mellon’s Tartan racing team
won the Urban Challenge.
76 SERVO 11.2010
FIGURE 4. Stanford’s Entry Stanley crosses the finish line.
recognition, to not only know the route to take (GPS) but
to see where it was and where it should not be. The team
formed by Red Whittaker, Carnegie Mellon robotics
professor and one of the world’s greatest driving forces for
robotics, came in second and third with their Sandstorm
and H1ghlander vehicles.
By 2007 — with robot cars becoming more
sophisticated — DARPA held an Urban Challenge on a
mock ‘urban street array’ in California. On Saturday,
November 3, 2007, the Tartan Racing Team (Red’s team
from Carnegie Melon) entry named Boss bested Stanford’s
Stanley Jr., Virginia Tech’s entry, and others in the 60
mile course. The winning Carnegie Mellon team is shown
in front of Boss in Figure 5. This event (not a race) was
not without its problems as Georgia Tech’s Porsche vehicle
ran into a barrier and mangled its sensor bar. Other
vehicles unexpectedly died. Stanford and VT finished
second and third respectively. Participating vehicles had
to cross intersections with competitors, pass others, deal
with professional drivers on the course, and obey basic
traffic rules.
The Rules were simple, so to speak. Here’s a list of
them from Carnegie Mellon’s site:
• Follow rules of the road.
The US military was given a mandate from Congress to
have 30% of all military vehicles unmanned by 2015. The
DARPA Grand Challenge and Urban Challenge were part of
our military’s method in achieving this goal. Sponsor a
series of contests and have the best and brightest students,
engineers, and scientists from top universities duel for some
pretty nice prizes. That’s a lot cheaper than doling out a
