The Race

DARPA Grand Challenge

The Urban Challenge is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) third autonomous challenge to promote development of robotic vehicles.  It calls for teams to compete to build an autonomous vehicle able to complete a 60-mile urban course safely in less than 6 hours.  The race will be held on November 3, 2007.

The Grand Challenge I was held in March 2004, when TerraMax robotic truck was one of only seven entries to complete the 1.3-mile qualifying course and made it 1.2 miles on race day.  In Grand Challenge II, held in October 2005 in Primm, Nev., TerraMax was one of five vehicles to complete the race, fulfilling DARPA’s vision of accelerating research and development in autonomous ground vehicles.

These challenges have been created in response to a Congressional and DoD mandate.  The Urban Challenge is bringing together individuals and organization from industry, the R&D community, government, the armed services, academia, and students in the pursuit of technological innovation.

For more information on the race, visit www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge.

DARPA

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is the prestigious research and development agency in the Department of Defense that has pioneered major technology and defense breakthroughs such as the Internet, Stealth aircraft, smart bombs and the pilotless Predator aircraft. For more information, visit them on the web at www.darpa.mil