The Great Race

Automakers, researchers, and universities are racing full steam ahead to perfect autonomous vehicles

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The green flag flew at sunrise, and the race was on. Eleven assorted vehicles started, one by one, onto a complex urban course set up on a former U.S. Air Force base in Victorville, Calif. Thirty more cars took the course to increase traffic density as thousands watched from the sidelines and on the Internet.

The 11 vehicles negotiated 60 miles of simulated urban driving, complete with intersections, but without drivers. They merged, passed, parked, and dodged heavy traffic, including each other, as quickly as they safely could. One lost control and stopped just short of an old commissary building. Another pulled into a carport and quit. Two traded paint trying to occupy the same lane at the same time.

“Junior,” Stanford University’s Volkswagen wagon, crossed the finish line first after just over four hours. Tartan Racing’s GM/Carnegie Mellon-sponsored “Boss,” a dark Chevy Tahoe, finished a minute later, followed eventually by just four of the 11 starters. But since the Boss had started 20 minutes after Junior, it was declared the $2 million first-prize winner. Second-place VW/Stanford took home a cool $1 million, and the third-place prize of $500,000 went to Virginia Tech’s Cadillac SRX.

Each entry was a computer-controlled robot bristling with radars, lasers, cameras, and electro-mechanical actuators, all of which required a large team to develop and operate. The winning Tartan team was supported by Continental AG, Intel, Google, Applanix, TeleAtlas, Vector, Ibeo, Mobileye, CarSim, CleanPower Resources, M/A-COM, NetApp, Vector, CANtech, and Hewlett Packard (in addition to General Motors and Carnegie Mellon University).

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the research-and-development arm of the U.S. Defense Department, sanctioned this “Grand Challenge,” the third in a series. Of the 15 entries that attempted a 142-mile desert course in the 2004 initial competition, exactly zero finished. In 2005, four completed a 132-mile desert route under the required 10-hour limit, and Stanford’s VW Touareg won the $2 million.

Why autonomous? As part of its 2001 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress decreed that “it shall be a goal of the Armed Forces to achieve the fielding of unmanned, remotely controlled technology such that … by 2015, one-third of the operational ground-combat vehicles are unmanned.” DARPA’s goal in support of that mandate is to develop technology that can execute military supply missions, for example, without human drivers.

But autonomous driving, and the technologies that may someday make it possible, also hold enormous possibilities for automakers and the driving public. “Imagine a world where there are no car crashes and very little traffic congestion,” suggests Larry Burns, GM’s vice president of research and development and strategic planning. “We’re actively developing cars that can drive themselves, and the DARPA Urban Challenge provides an excellent opportunity to demonstrate our progress.”

He adds that the competition has significantly advanced the understanding needed to make driverless vehicles a reality. “Imagine being virtually chauffeured safely in your car while doing your e-mail, eating breakfast, and watching the news,” Burns says. “The technology in the Boss (named after GM Research founder Charles F. “Boss” Kettering) is a steppingstone toward delivering this type of convenience.”

The research effort is not meant to deny people who enjoy the act of driving or who don’t trust a vehicle computer to get them from Point A to Point B. “While fully autonomous driving may be a possibility for the future, it’s not Volkswagen’s intent to replace the driver,” says Burkhard Huhnke, executive director of the VW of America Electronics Research Laboratory in Palo Alto, Calif. “By pursuing a stretch goal, such as an autonomously driven vehicle,” he adds, “we’re able to advance certain aspects that will be of use in more conventional and current driver-assistance and safety systems.” To further that end, VW of America recently announced a $5.75-million contribution to create a Volkswagen Automotive Innovation Lab (VAIL) on Stanford’s campus.

Not to be upstaged, GM announced the establishment last June of an Autonomous Driving Collaborative Research Lab at Carnegie Mellon’s Pittsburgh campus under a new five-year, $5-million agreement. “We have a shared vision of developing technologies that have the potential to resolve transportation challenges,” says Alan Taub, GM’s executive director for research and development.

Taub says that too many drivers aren’t paying attention, anyway. “Look around when you drive at what some people are doing while they’re driving. They’re putting on makeup, talking on the phone, looking at their BlackBerries. Everyone talks about driver distraction, but to some people, driving is the distraction. They would rather be doing something else. For those other vehicles on the road, it’ll make an overall safer world.”

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