The DARPA Grand Challenge is a prize competition for American
autonomous vehicle
Vehicular automation involves the use of mechatronics, artificial intelligence, and multi-agent systems to assist the operator of a vehicle (car, aircraft, watercraft, or otherwise).Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Lanzon, A.,Group Coordinated Control o ...
s, funded by the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the most prominent research organization of the
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national sec ...
.
Congress
A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...
has authorized DARPA to award cash prizes to further DARPA's mission to sponsor revolutionary, high-payoff research that bridges the gap between fundamental discoveries and military use. The initial DARPA Grand Challenge was created to spur the development of technologies needed to create the first fully
autonomous ground vehicles capable of completing a substantial off-road course within a limited time. The third event, the
DARPA Urban Challenge
The third driverless car competition of the DARPA Grand Challenge was commonly known as the DARPA Urban Challenge. It took place on November 3, 2007 at the site of the now-closed George Air Force Base (currently used as Southern California Logist ...
extended the initial Challenge to autonomous operation in a mock urban environment. A more recent Challenge, the 2012
DARPA Robotics Challenge
The DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) was a prize competition funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Held from 2012 to 2015, it aimed to develop semi-autonomous ground robots that could do "complex tasks in dangerous, degraded, ...
, focused on autonomous emergency-maintenance robots, and new Challenges are still being conceived.
The first competition of the DARPA Grand Challenge was held on March 13, 2004 in the Mojave Desert region of the United States, along a 150-mile (240 km) route that follows along the path of Interstate 15 from just before 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 and car Sandstorm (a converted Humvee) traveled the farthest distance, completing 11.78 km (7.32 mi) of the course before getting hung up on a rock after making a switchback turn. No winner was declared, and the cash prize was not given. Therefore, a second DARPA Grand Challenge event was scheduled for 2005.
History and background
Fully autonomous vehicles have been an international pursuit for many years, from endeavors in Japan (starting in 1977), Germany (
Ernst Dickmanns and
), Italy (the ARGO Project), the European Union (
EUREKA Prometheus Project), the United States of America, and other countries. DARPA funded the development of the first fully autonomous robot beginning in 1966 with the
Shakey the robot
Shakey the Robot was the first general-purpose mobile robot able to reason about its own actions. While other robots would have to be instructed on each individual step of completing a larger task, Shakey could analyze commands and break them down ...
project at
Stanford Research Institute
SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic ...
, now SRI International. The first autonomous ground vehicle capable of driving on and off roads was developed by DARPA as part of the
Strategic Computing Initiative
The United States government's Strategic Computing Initiative funded research into advanced computer hardware and artificial intelligence from 1983 to 1993. The initiative was designed to support various projects that were required to develop ma ...
beginning in 1984 leading to demonstrations of autonomous navigation by the Autonomous Land Vehicle and the
Navlab.
The Grand Challenge was the first long distance competition for driverless cars in the world; other research efforts in the field of
driverless car
A self-driving car, also known as an autonomous car, driver-less car, or robotic car (robo-car), is a car that is capable of traveling without human input.Xie, S.; Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Ding, Z.; Arvin, F.,Distributed Motion Planning for S ...
s take a more traditional commercial or academic approach. The U.S. Congress authorized DARPA to offer prize money ($1 million) for the first Grand Challenge to facilitate robotic development, with the ultimate goal of making one-third of ground military forces autonomous by 2015. Following the 2004 event, Dr.
Tony Tether, the director of DARPA, announced that the prize money had been increased to $2 million for the next event, which was claimed on October 9, 2005. The first, second and third places in the 2007 Urban Challenge received $2 million, $1 million, and $500,000, respectively. 14 new teams have qualified in year 2019.
The competition was open to teams and organizations from around the world, as long as there was at least one U.S. citizen on the roster. Teams have participated from high schools, universities, businesses and other organizations. More than 100 teams registered in the first year, bringing a wide variety of technological skills to the race. In the second year, 195 teams from 36
U.S. state
In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...
s and 4 foreign countries entered the race.
2004 Grand Challenge
The first competition of the DARPA Grand Challenge was held on March 13, 2004 in the
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert ( ; mov, Hayikwiir Mat'aar; es, Desierto de Mojave) is a desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily ...
region of the United States, along a route that follows along the path of
Interstate 15
Interstate 15 (I-15) is a major Interstate Highway in the western United States, running through Southern California and the Intermountain West. I-15 begins near the Mexican border in San Diego County and stretches north to Alberta, Cana ...
from just before
Barstow, California
Barstow is a city in San Bernardino County, California, in the Mojave Desert of Southern California. Located in the Inland Empire region of California, the population was 25,415 at the 2020 census. Barstow is an important crossroads for the In ...
to just past the
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
–
Nevada
Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, ...
border in
Primm.
None of the robot vehicles finished the route.
Carnegie Mellon University's Red Team and car
Sandstorm
A dust storm, also called a sandstorm, is a meteorological phenomenon common in arid and semi-arid regions. Dust storms arise when a gust front or other strong wind blows loose sand and dirt from a dry surface. Fine particles are transpo ...
(a converted Humvee) traveled the farthest distance, completing of the course before getting hung up on a rock after making a switchback turn. No winner was declared, and the cash prize was not given. Therefore, a second DARPA Grand Challenge event was scheduled for 2005.
2005 Grand Challenge
The second competition of the DARPA Grand Challenge began at 6:40 am on October 8, 2005. All but one of the 23 finalists in the 2005 race surpassed the distance completed by the best vehicle in the 2004 race. Five vehicles successfully completed the 212 km (132 mi) course:
Vehicles in the 2005 race passed through three narrow tunnels and negotiated more than 100 sharp left and right turns. The race concluded 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 some very sharp switchbacks (Daggett Ridge) were required near the beginning of the route, the course had far fewer curves and generally wider roads than the 2005 course.
The natural rivalry between the teams from
Stanford and
Carnegie Mellon
Carnegie may refer to:
People
*Carnegie (surname), including a list of people with the name
*Clan Carnegie, a lowland Scottish clan
Institutions Named for Andrew Carnegie
* Carnegie Building (Troy, New York), on the campus of Rensselaer Polyte ...
(
Sebastian Thrun
Sebastian Thrun (born May 14, 1967) is a German-American entrepreneur, educator, and computer scientist. He is CEO of Kitty Hawk Corporation, and chairman and co-founder of Udacity. Before that, he was a Google VP and Fellow, a Professor of Co ...
, head of the Stanford team was previously a faculty member at Carnegie Mellon and colleague of
Red Whittaker, head of the CMU team) was played out during the race. Mechanical problems plagued H1ghlander before it was passed by Stanley. Gray Team's entry was a miracle in itself, as the team from the suburbs of New Orleans was caught in
Hurricane Katrina a few short weeks before the race. The fifth finisher, Terramax, a 30,000 pound entry from
Oshkosh Truck
Oshkosh Corporation, formerly Oshkosh Truck, is an American industrial company that designs and builds specialty trucks, military vehicles, truck bodies, airport fire apparatus, and access equipment. The corporation also owns Pierce Manufact ...
, finished on the second day. The huge truck spent the night idling on the course, but was particularly nimble in carefully picking its way down the narrow roads of Beer Bottle Pass.
2007 Urban Challenge
The third competition of the DARPA Grand Challenge, known as the "Urban Challenge", took place on November 3, 2007 at the site of the now-closed
George Air Force Base
George Air Force Base was a United States Air Force base located within the city limits, 8 miles northwest, of central Victorville, California, about 75 miles northeast of Los Angeles, California.
Established by the United States Army Air C ...
(currently used as
Southern California Logistics Airport
Southern California Logistics Airport , also known as Victorville Airport, is a public airport located in the city of Victorville in San Bernardino County, California, approximately north of San Bernardino. Prior to its civil usage, the facili ...
), in
Victorville, California
Victorville is a city in Victor Valley in San Bernardino County, California. Its population as of the 2020 census was 134,810.
History
In 1858, Aaron G. Lane came to what is now known as Victorville and founded a waystation called "Lane's Cr ...
Google map.
[Urban Challenge 2008 Archive](_blank)
. The course involved a urban area course, to be completed in less than 6 hours. Rules included obeying all traffic regulations while negotiating with other traffic and obstacles and merging into traffic.
Unlike previous challenges, the 2007 Urban Challenge organizers divided competitors into two "tracks", A and B. All Track A and Track B teams were part of the same competition circuit, but the teams chosen for the Track A program received US $1 million in funding. These 11 teams largely represented major universities and large corporate interests such as
CMU teaming with
GM as Tartan Racing,
Stanford teaming with
Volkswagen
Volkswagen (),English: , . abbreviated as VW (), is a German motor vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front under the Nazi Party and revived into a global brand post-W ...
, Virginia Tech teaming with
TORC Robotics
Torc Robotics (Torc), an independent subsidiary of Daimler Truck, is an American autonomous truck company headquartered in Blacksburg, Virginia, with operations in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Austin, Texas; and Stuttgart, Germany. Torc is testing auto ...
as VictorTango,
Oshkosh Truck
Oshkosh Corporation, formerly Oshkosh Truck, is an American industrial company that designs and builds specialty trucks, military vehicles, truck bodies, airport fire apparatus, and access equipment. The corporation also owns Pierce Manufact ...
,
Honeywell
Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building technologies, performance ma ...
,
Raytheon
Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It is one of the largest aerospace and defense manufacturers in the world by revenue and market capitali ...
,
Caltech
The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...
,
Autonomous Solutions,
Cornell
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach a ...
, and
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
. One of the few independent entries in Track A wa
the Golem Group DARPA has not publicly explained the rationale behind the selection of Track A teams.
Teams were given maps sparsely charting the waypoints that defined the competition courses. At least one team, Tartan Racing, enhanced the maps through the insertion of additional extrapolated waypoints for improved navigation. A debriefing paper published by Team Jefferson illustrates graphically the contrast between the course map it was given by DARPA and the course map used by Tartan Racing.
Tartan Racing claimed the $2 million prize with their vehicle "Boss", a Chevy Tahoe. The second-place finisher earning the $1 million prize was the Stanford Racing Team with their entry "Junior", a 2006 Volkswagen Passat. Coming in third place was team VictorTango, winning the $500,000 prize with their 2005 Ford Escape hybrid, "Odin".
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
placed 4th, with
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...
and
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
/
Lehigh University
Lehigh University (LU) is a private research university in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania. The university was established in 1865 by businessman Asa Packer and was originally affiliated with the Epi ...
also completing the course.
The six teams that successfully finished the entire course:
While the 2004 and 2005 events were more physically challenging for the
vehicle
A vehicle (from la, vehiculum) is a machine that transports people or cargo. Vehicles include wagons, bicycles, motor vehicles (motorcycles, cars, trucks, buses, mobility scooters for disabled people), railed vehicles (trains, trams), ...
s, the robots operated in isolation and only encountered other vehicles on the course when attempting to pass. The Urban Challenge required designers to build vehicles able to obey all traffic laws while they detect and avoid other robots on the course. This is a particular challenge for vehicle
software
Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work.
...
, as vehicles must make "intelligent" decisions in real time based on the actions of other vehicles. Other than previous autonomous vehicle efforts that focused on structured situations such as highway driving with little interaction between the vehicles, this competition operated in a more cluttered urban environment and required the cars to perform sophisticated interactions with each other, such as maintaining precedence at a 4-way stop intersection.
2012 Robotics Challenge
The DARPA Robotics Challenge is an ongoing competition focusing on humanoid robotics. The primary goal of the program is to develop ground robotic capabilities to execute complex tasks in dangerous, degraded, human-engineered environments. It launched in October 2012, and hosted the Virtual Robotics Competition in June 2013. Two more competitions are planned: the DRC Trials in December 2013, and the DRC Finals in December 2014.
Unlike prior Challenges, the construction of the "vehicles" will not be part of the scope of the Robotics Challenge. In August 2012 DARPA announced
Boston Dynamics
Boston Dynamics is an American engineering and robotics design company founded in 1992 as a spin-off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, Boston Dynamics has been owned by the Hyundai Motor Gro ...
would act as sole source for the robots to be used in the challenge, awarding them a contract to develop and build 8 identical robots based on the
PETMAN project for the software teams to use. The amount contracted was $10,882,438 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract and work is expected to be completed by Aug. 9, 2014.
2013 FANG Challenge
On April 22, 2013, DARPA awarded a $1 million prize to "Ground Systems", a 3-person team with members in Ohio, Texas and California, as the winner of the
Fast Adaptable Next-Generation Ground Vehicle (FANG) Mobility/Drivetrain Challenge. Team Ground Systems' final design submission received the highest score when measured against the established requirements for system performance and manufacturability. Since the beginning of the first FANG Challenge on January 14, 2013, more than 1,000 participants within more than 200 teams used the
META design tools and the
VehicleFORGE collaboration platform developed by
Vanderbilt University
Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...
in
Nashville,
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
, to design and simulate the performance of thousands of potential mobility and drivetrain subsystems. The goal of the FANG program is to test the specially developed META design tools, model libraries and the VehicleFORGE platform, which were created to significantly compress the design-to-production time of a complex defense system.
2017–2021 Subterranean Challenge
![SubT-logo centered color-MAIN](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/SubT-logo_centered_color-MAIN.png)
The
DARPA Subterranean Challenge tasks teams, consisting of university and corporate entities from around the world, to build robotic systems and virtual solutions to autonomously map, navigate, and search subterranean environments. These environments pose significant challenges to competitors, including a lack of lighting, lack of GPS capabilities, dripping water, thick smoke, and cluttered or irregularly shaped environments. The challenge started in September 2018 and consists of a Systems Competition (in which teams compete with physical robots) and a Virtual Competition (in which teams compete in a virtual environment in the ROS Gazebo virtual simulator). The competition is split into three stages (Development Stage, Circuit Stage, and Finals Stage. The SubT Challenge consists of four events, he Tunnel Circuit (August 2019), which was held at an experimental mine in Pittsburgh, PA; the Urban Circuit (February 2020), which features an abandoned nuclear power plant in Elma, WA; the Cave Circuit (November 2020), which was held virtual only due to the COVID-19 Pandemic; and the Final Event (September 2021), which will feature elements from all three domains (tunnel urban underground, and natural cave networks will be held in Louisville, KY. On September 24, 2021, DARPA will award a $2 million prize to the winner of the Systems Competition and $1.5 million to the winner of the Virtual Competition.
2018 Launch Challenge
![DARPA Launch Challenge](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/DARPA_Launch_Challenge.png)
In early 2020, three teams were expected to compete by rapidly launching a small satellite payload into orbit, with minimal notification, from two different launch sites (this requirement was later, when there was only one competitor left in the Challenge, relaxed so that the launches should use different launch pads, but could use the same launch site) – one just days after the other – for an opportunity to win prizes. The prizes of the Challenge are: All teams that qualify for the competition would receive $400,000. Each team to successfully carry out an orbital launch gets a prize of $2 million, and is eligible to try to make a second launch in rapid succession. The second launches of the teams are scored (based on combination of time to launch, mass launched and orbital accuracy, etc.); the winning team gets $10 million, second prize is $9 million, and third prize $8 million. The pool of launch sites for the Challenge originally consisted of 8 launch locations; in the end, only
Pacific Spaceport Complex – Alaska
The Pacific Spaceport Complex – Alaska (PSCA), formerly known as the Kodiak Launch Complex (KLC), is a dual-use commercial and military spaceport for sub-orbital and orbital launch vehicles. The facility is owned and operated by the Alaska ...
was used for an attempted launch.
The Challenge was announced on 18 April 2018, and on 10 April 2019, three finalist teams who would be attempting to launch rockets were announced:
Virgin Orbit
Virgin Orbit is a company within the Virgin Group which launch service provider, provides launch services for small satellites. On January 17, 2021, their ''LauncherOne'' rocket successfully reached orbit for the first time, and successfully dep ...
,
Vector Launch and
Astra (although at the time it was not published that the third finalist was Astra; the company was referred only as a "stealth startup"). In the autumn of 2019, both Vector and Virgin dropped out of the competition, Vector because of financial problems and Virgin because it wanted to focus on other customers than DARPA. The final remaining team, Astra, attempted to launch their
Astra Rocket 3.0 for the Challenge from
Pacific Spaceport Complex – Alaska
The Pacific Spaceport Complex – Alaska (PSCA), formerly known as the Kodiak Launch Complex (KLC), is a dual-use commercial and military spaceport for sub-orbital and orbital launch vehicles. The facility is owned and operated by the Alaska ...
in late February and early March 2020, but several launch attempts were all called off due to weather and technical difficulties. With the only team left in the competition failing to launch their rocket in the time frame set by DARPA, the Challenge was called off 2 March 2020 with no winner of the DARPA Launch Challenge. The $12 million prize pool went unclaimed. No rocket launch was performed by any contender of the DARPA Launch Challenge.
2022 Triage Challenge
The DARPA Triage Challenge (DTC) will use a series of challenge events to spur development of novel physiological features for medical triage. The DTC aims to drive breakthrough innovations in identification of “signatures” of injury that will help medical responders perform scalable, timely, and accurate triage. It is a 3-year challenge with prize money of $7 million.
The Challenge was announced on 16 November 2022.
Technology
A technology paper and source code for the computer vision machine learning component of the 2005 Stanford entry has been published.
2007 Urban Challenge teams employed a variety of different software and hardware combinations for interpreting sensor data, planning, and execution. Some examples:
See also
*
ARPA-E
ARPA-E, or Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy is a United States government agency tasked with promoting and funding research and development of advanced energy technologies. It is modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agenc ...
(energy)
*
Centennial Challenges
The Centennial Challenges are NASA space competition inducement prize contests for non-government-funded technological achievements by American teams.
Origin
NASA's Centennial Challenge Program (CCP) directly engages the public at large in the pr ...
*
Driverless car
A self-driving car, also known as an autonomous car, driver-less car, or robotic car (robo-car), is a car that is capable of traveling without human input.Xie, S.; Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Ding, Z.; Arvin, F.,Distributed Motion Planning for S ...
*
Multi Autonomous Ground-robotic International Challenge
The Multi Autonomous Ground-robotic International Challenge (MAGIC) is a 1.6 million dollar prize competition for autonomous mobile robots funded by TARDEC and the DSTO, the primary research organizations for Tank and Defense research in the Unit ...
*
European Land - Robot Trial
*
General Motors EN-V
*
Global Security Challenge
The Global Security Challenge runs international business plan competitions to find and select the most promising security technology startups in the world. The GSC holds regional selection events and a Security Summit in London to bring together ...
*
Google driverless car
*
List of challenge awards
This list of challenge awards is an index to articles about notable challenge awards, or inducement prize contests.
A cash prize is given for the accomplishment of a feat, usually of engineering.
Offered before 1900
Offered in 20th century
...
*
MIT Media Lab
The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fixed academic disciplines, but draws from ...
CityCar
The CityCar or MIT CityCar is an urban all-electric concept car designed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab. The project was conceived by William J. Mitchell and his Smart Cities Research Group. It is now led by Kent Lars ...
*
Robot competition
A robot competition is an event where the abilities and characteristics of robots may be tested and assessed. Usually they have to beat other robots in order to become the best one. Many competitions are for schools but several competitions with ...
*
VisLab Intercontinental Autonomous Challenge
References
External links
*
Announcement of the 2007 Grand Challenge(
PDF)
DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge
Press coverage
*
ttps://www.theregister.co.uk/content/28/36234.html The Register: DARPA's Grand Challenge proves to be too grandCNN.com: Robots fail to complete Grand ChallengeSFGate.com: Robot race suffers quick, ignoble end2004 DARPA Grand Challenge Image GalleryIEEE Computer Society, Special Issue on Unmanned Vehicles: The DARPA Grand ChallengeJournal of Field Robotics, Special Issue on DARPA Grand Challenge, Part 1Journal of Field Robotics, Special Issue on DARPA Grand Challenge, Part 2
*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20071105130618/http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/robotics/2169012.html Popular Mechanics article on the DARPA Grand Challenge
Popular Mechanics article on the UK MoD Grand Challenge
Scientific American article on the DARPA Grand Challenge
Forbes article on the DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge competitionEngadget article on the DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge competition
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