Editorial

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Urban Challenge (DUC) was held on November 3, 2007, at the now-closed George Air Force Base in Victorville, California, in the United States. The DUC was the third in a series of DARPAsponsored competitions for autonomous vehicles. Whereas the previous two “Grand Challenges” (held in 2003 and 2005) were intended to demonstrate that autonomous ground vehicles could travel significant distances in off-road terrain, the DUC was designed to foster innovation in autonomous vehicle operation in busy urban environments. Competitors developed full-scale (i.e., passenger vehicle–sized) autonomous vehicles to navigate through a mock city environment, executing simulated military supply missions while merging into moving traffic, navigating traffic circles, negotiating busy intersections, and avoiding obstacles. Race rules required that the 96-km (60 mile) course be completed in less than 6 hours. The rules also required that competitors obey all traffic regulations while avoiding other competitors and humandriven “traffic vehicles. ” The winner of the race—and of a $2 million dollar first prize—was a modified Chevy Tahoe named “Boss” developed by Tartan Racing, a team led by Carnegie Mellon University. The second-place finisher, and recipient of a $1 million prize, was Stanford Racing Team’s ”Junior,” a Volkswagen Passat. In third place was team VictorTango from Virginia Tech, winning a $500,000 prize with a Ford Escape hybrid dubbed ”Odin. ” Vehicles from MIT, Cornell, and the University of Pennsylvania/Lehigh also successfully completed the course. It should be noted that these 6 teams were winnowed down from an initial pool of 89 teams that were initially accepted for participation in the DUC. Three months before the race, a panel from DARPA selected 35 teams to participate in the National Qualifying Event (NQE), which was held one week before the final race. Field trials at the NQE narrowed the field down to the 11 teams that competed on race day. It can be argued that the greatest achievement of the Urban Challenge was the production of important new research in perception, control, and motion planning for intelligent autonomous vehicles operating in urban scenarios. Another long-term result of the DUC is the undeniable shift in public perception that robotic systems are now able to successfully manage the complexities of an urban environment. Although the race’s mock city environment simplified some of the challenges present in a real urban environment (e.g., there were no pedestrians or traffic signals), the race left no doubt in the minds of most observers that the development of vehicles that can “drive themselves” in real-world settings is now inevitable. Although DARPA’s direct motivation for sponsoring the race was to foster technology for military applications, the nearer term impact may lie in the commercial sector. Automotive manufacturers view autonomous sensing and control technologies as keys to vehicles of the future that will save thousands of lives now lost in traffic accidents. Manufacturers of mining and agricultural equipment are also interested in creating a next generation of vehicles that will reduce the need for human control in dirty and dangerous applications. Clearly, if the technology displayed at the DUC can be made low cost and robust enough for use in the commercial sector, the effect of the Urban Challenge on society will be substantial and long lasting. For this, the robotics community is beholden to DARPA for