The DARPA Grand Challenge 2005 was the second edition of a prize competition for American autonomous vehicles, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a prominent research organization of the United States Department of Defense. The event took place on October 8, 2005, in the Mojave Desert, with a course spanning 212 kilometers (132 miles). Stanford University's entry, a modified Volkswagen Touareg named Stanley, completed the course in 6 hours and 54 minutes, winning the $2 million prize. The competition aimed to spur development of fully autonomous ground vehicles capable of navigating substantial off-road terrain within a limited time, building on the first Grand Challenge in 2004, where no vehicle finished the route.
Background and History
Fully autonomous vehicles had been an international pursuit for decades, with efforts in Japan starting in 1977, Germany (Ernst Dickmanns and the VaMP vehicle), Italy (the ARGO Project), the European Union (EUREKA Prometheus Project), and the United States. DARPA had funded early autonomous robot development, including the Shakey the Robot project at Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International) beginning in 1966, and later the Autonomous Land Vehicle and Navlab under the Strategic Computing Initiative in the 1980s. The Grand Challenge was the first long-distance competition for driverless cars worldwide, differing from commercial or academic research approaches. The U.S. Congress authorized DARPA to offer prize money, initially $1 million for the first event, with the ultimate goal of making one-third of ground military forces autonomous by 2015. Following the 2004 event, DARPA director Dr. Tony Tether increased the prize to $2 million for the 2005 race.
The competition was open to teams worldwide, provided at least one U.S. citizen was on the roster. Participants came from high schools, universities, businesses, and other organizations. In the first year, over 100 teams registered; in the second year, 195 teams from 36 U.S. states and 4 foreign countries entered.
2004 Grand Challenge
The first DARPA Grand Challenge was held on March 13, 2004, in the Mojave Desert, along a 150-mile (240 km) route following Interstate 15 from near Barstow, California, to just past the California–Nevada border in Primm. None of the robot vehicles finished the route. Carnegie Mellon University's Red Team, with its converted Humvee named Sandstorm, traveled the farthest, completing 11.78 km (7.32 mi) before getting hung up on a rock after a switchback turn. No winner was declared, and the cash prize was not awarded, prompting a second event in 2005.
2005 Race Course and Challenges
The 2005 course began at 6:40 am on October 8, 2005. All but one of the 23 finalists surpassed the 11.78 km distance achieved by the best 2004 vehicle. The route included three narrow tunnels and more than 100 sharp left and right turns, concluding through Beer Bottle Pass, a winding mountain pass with a sheer drop-off on one side and a rock face on the other. Although the 2004 course required more elevation gain and had very sharp switchbacks at Daggett Ridge, the 2005 course had far fewer curves and generally wider roads, but its technical challenges were significant.
Five vehicles successfully completed the 132-mile course. Stanford's Stanley finished first, followed by Carnegie Mellon's Sandstorm and H1ghlander, Gray Team's entry from New Orleans, and Terramax, a 30,000-pound truck from Oshkosh Truck, which finished on the second day after idling overnight on the course. The race featured a natural rivalry between Stanford's Sebastian Thrun, a former Carnegie Mellon faculty member, and Carnegie Mellon's Red Whittaker. Mechanical problems plagued H1ghlander before Stanley passed it. Gray Team's participation was remarkable, as the team was affected by Hurricane Katrina weeks before the race.
2007 Urban Challenge and Legacy
The third DARPA Grand Challenge, known as the Urban Challenge, took place on November 3, 2007, at the former George Air Force Base (now Southern California Logistics Airport) in Victorville, California. The course was a 96 km (60 mi) urban area route to be completed in less than 6 hours, requiring compliance with traffic regulations, negotiation with other traffic and obstacles, and merging into traffic. Competitors were divided into Track A and Track B, with Track A teams receiving $1 million in funding; these largely represented major universities and corporations, including Carnegie Mellon with General Motors (Tartan Racing), Stanford with Volkswagen, Virginia Tech with TORC Robotics, Oshkosh Truck, Honeywell, Raytheon, Caltech, Autonomous Solutions, Cornell University, and MIT. The Golem Group was one of the few independent Track A entries. Teams received sparse waypoint maps, and some, like Tartan Racing, enhanced them with additional extrapolated waypoints.
The 2005 Grand Challenge demonstrated significant progress in autonomous vehicle technology, with five vehicles completing the course compared to none in 2004. It paved the way for subsequent DARPA challenges, including the 2007 Urban Challenge, the 2012 Robotics Challenge, and the Subterranean Challenge, which focused on autonomous emergency-maintenance robots and subterranean exploration. The event contributed to the development of technologies now used in modern autonomous systems, including Artificial intelligence and Machine learning approaches, and influenced later commercial efforts such as Waymo and Tesla. The success of Stanley, developed at Stanford AI Lab, highlighted the role of academic research in advancing the field.