DARPA Grand Challenge
The DARPA Grand Challenge was an unmanned land vehicle competition sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency technology division of the US Department of Defense . With the announcement of the prize, the development of fully autonomous vehicles should be promoted. The competition was held for the last time in 2007.
DARPA Grand Challenge 2004
The first Grand Challenge took place on March 13, 2004 in Barstow , California . The route should have led through the Mojave Desert to Primm, just over the Nevada border . DARPA offered $ 1 million as prize money for the vehicle that was the first to complete the 150-mile (241.4 km) course parallel to Interstate 15 within ten hours. Although more than 100 teams registered for the start, none of the teams managed to successfully complete the course. The most successful vehicle could only cover 7.4 miles (11.9 km), which is less than 5% of the total distance.
DARPA Grand Challenge 2005
The second Grand Challenge took place from October 8 to 9, 2005, also in the Mojave Desert in the US state of Nevada, with start and finish in Primm. The prize money donated by DARPA was doubled to two million dollars. 195 teams from 36 US states and four other countries registered to participate. Five teams completed the entire route of 132.2 miles (212.76 km), four of them within the maximum time of ten hours. The winner of the race was the Stanford University team led by Sebastian Thrun with the modified VW Touareg " Stanley ", which covered the distance in 6 hours, 53 minutes and 58 seconds.
DARPA Urban Challenge 2007
The third Grand Challenge took place on November 3, 2007. In contrast to the two previous races, in which a course had to be completed in largely open terrain across the desert, the third race took place in a built-up area of an abandoned barracks of the former Air Force base at George Air Force Base on the outskirts of Victorville, California instead of. Autonomous navigation was no longer the only focus. Since all autonomous vehicles and additional human-controlled cars were in city traffic here, the normal right of way rules had to be observed. For the team, which was the first to complete a 60-mile course, divided into three missions, in less than 6 hours, the DARPA announced prize money totaling 3.5 million US dollars. The first three teams to reach the goal in the shortest possible time and have the fewest deductions for rule violations will receive $ 2 million, $ 1 million and $ 500,000, respectively. The DARPA Urban Challenge 2007 was won by the Tartan Racing team, the Stanford Racing Team came second and the VictorTango team came third. The German finalists Team AnnieWay (University of Karlsruhe) and CarOLO (TU Braunschweig) were eliminated in the course of the race due to technical difficulties (AnnieWay: probably computer error; CarOLO: bent sensors after collision with team MIT).
Rules 2007
- The vehicle must drive autonomously on the ground and complete the course within six hours.
- The vehicle may not leave an area specified by DARPA.
- The vehicle may use publicly available signals, such as B. use the GPS .
- No control commands may be sent to the vehicle during the race.
- The vehicle must not deliberately touch any other vehicle.
- An autonomous service station is permitted, which is approximately halfway along the entire route.
