ON OCTOBER 8, 2005, a driverless Volkswagen Touareg SUV named Stanley completed a 132-mile course through the Mohave Desert in Nevada in six hours and 53 minutes to win a $2M prize. The contest, known as the DARPA 2005 Grand Challenge, was sponsored by the Pentagon to encourage the development of robot-guided vehicles to make the transport of supplies in hazardous zones safer for humans. The winning vehicle, a self-navigating Touareg with modifications designed by the Stanford Racing Team, was equipped with an array of technical devices, including GPS, LADAR (laser distance and ranging), custom application software, and Intel Blade servers, and featured a JAI PULNiX TMC-6700CL color camera and Cam2Net Gigabit Ethernet adapter as part of its roof-mounted navigation system.
The DARPA (Defense Advanced Project Research Agency) 2005 Grand Challenge is the second such Challenge issued. The first Grand Challenge, (DARPA 2004) did not award a winner. For 2005, DARPA doubled the prize from $1M to $2M, and increased the length and difficulty of the course. The result for 2005 was that only five of 23 entries finished the course, and only four of those who finished did so within the 10-hour deadline. DARPA increased the difficulty of the challenge further by not revealing the course until the morning of the day of the race, when CDs containing the route information were distributed. The vehicles were thus required to navigate entirely without human intervention or guidance. The course included a variety of terrain, including dirt paths, winding mountain roads, choke points, and both man-made and natural obstacles.
