Stanford Car Wins DARPA Robot Race

by Ed Oswald

October 10, 2005, 12:32 PM

This year's DARPA Grand Challenge robot race across the Mojave Desert had a much more successful ending than last year's event: entrants actually completed the race.

The contest was sponsored by the Department of Defense in an effort to investigate methods of further roboticizing the army and cut down on human casualties. Everyday consumer vehicles were outfitted with computers to completely automate the driving process.

In 2004, none of the fifteen cars completed the race due to technical glitches, breakdowns or just plain bad luck, leaving the $1 million prize unclaimed. Thus, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) re-launched the contest and doubled the prize to $2 million.

The result was five of 23 teams finishing the race with Stanford's "Stanley," a robot controlled Volkswagen Toureg, finishing the 131.6 mile course in six hours, 53 minutes and 58 seconds. The car's average speed was 19.1 mph.

Work began on the car in July 2004, and took approximately ten months to complete. The VW was outfitted with a "brain" consisting of six Pentium M motherboards, as well as software specially designed by Stanford researchers.

The car was also outfitted with a GPS system to know where it is going and expected to go - a necessary component when nobody is driving.

"It will not be enough for a car to have a strong body. It will also need a strong mind," said computer science Associate Professor Sebastian Thrun, who led the Stanford Racing Team in May 2005 when the car was unveiled. Altogether, the university spent a half million dollars to build the car.

DARPA praised the contest entrants after the completion of the race. "These vehicles haven't just achieved world records, they've made history," director Dr. Tony Tether said. "We have completed our mission here and look forward to watching these exciting technologies take off."