DARPA Grand Challenge The DARPA Grand Challenge is a prize competition for American autonomous vehicle s , funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency , the most prominent research organization of the United States Department of Defense . Congress 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 vehicle s capable of completing a substantial off - road course within a limited time . The third event , the DARPA Urban Challenge extended the initial Challenge to autonomous operation in a mock urban environment . The most recent Challenge , the 2012 DARPA Robotics Challenge , will focus on autonomous emergency - maintenance robots . 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 VaMP ) , Italy ( the ARGO Project ) , the European Union ( EUREKA Prometheus Project ) , the United States of America , and other countries . The Grand Challenge was the first long distance competition for driverless cars in the world ; other research efforts in the field of Driverless car 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 US $ 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 US $ 2 million , US $ 1 million , and US $ 500 , 000 , respectively . The competition was open to teams and organizations from around the world , as long as there were 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 US states 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 region of the United States , along a 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 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 : 40am 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 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 ( Sebastian Thrun , 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 , 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 . Source code for one of the entries is available here : 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 ( currently used as Southern California Logistics Airport ) , in Victorville , California ( Google map ) . 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 , Virginia Tech teaming with TORC Technologies as VictorTango , Oshkosh Truck , Honeywell , Raytheon , Caltech , Autonomous Solutions , Cornell , and MIT . One of the few independent entries in Track A was 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 published by one of the teams 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 placed 4th , with Cornell University and University of Pennsylvania / Lehigh University 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 vehicles , 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 , 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 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 Technology . 2007 Urban Challenge teams employed a variety of different software and hardware combinations for interpreting sensor data , planning , and execution . Some examples :