Caroline: An Autonomously Driving Vehicle for Urban Environments

The 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge afforded the golden opportunity for the Technische Universität Braunschweig to demonstrate its abilities to develop an autonomously driving vehicle to compete with the world’s best competitors. After several stages of qualification, our team CarOLO qualified early for the DARPA Urban Challenge Final Event and was among only eleven teams from initially 89 competitors to compete in the final. We had the ability to work together in a large group of experts, each contributing his expertise in his discipline, and significant organisational, financial and technical support by local sponsors who helped us to become the best non-US team. In this report, we describe the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge, our contribution ”Caroline”, the technology and algorithms along with her performance in the DARPA Urban Challenge Final Event on November 3, 2007. M. Buehler et al.  The NQE consisted of several tasks to be completed and obstacles to overcome autonomously by the participating vehicles, including tank traps, a tunnel, speed bumps, stationary cars to pass and many more. On October 5, 2005, DARPA announced the 23 teams that would participate in the final event. The course started in Primm, Nevada, where the 2004 challenge should have ended. With a total distance of 131.6 miles and several natural obstacles, the course was by no means easier than the one from the year before. At the end, five teams completed it and the rest did significantly 444 F.W. Rauskolb et al. Fig. 1. 2004 DARPA Grand Challenge Area between Barstow, CA (A) and Primm, NV (B). better as the teams the year before. The Stanford Racing Team was awarded the $2 million first prize. In 2007, DARPA wanted to increase the difficulty of the requirements, in order to meet the goal set by Congress and the Department of Defense that by 2015 a third of the Army’s ground combat vehicles would operate unmanned. Having already proved the feasibility of crossing a desert and overcome natural obstacles without human intervention, now a tougher task had to be mastered. As the United States Armed Forces are currently facing serious challenges in urban environments, the choice of such seemed logical. DARPA used the good experience and knowledge gained from the first and second Grand Challenge event to define the tasks for the autonomous vehicles. The 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge took place in Vicorville, CA as depicted in Fig. 2. The Technische Universität Braunschweig started in June 2006 as a newcomer in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. Significantly supported by industrial partners, five institutes from the faculties of computer science and mechanical and electrical engineering equipped a 2006 Volkswagen Passat station wagon named ”Caroline” to participate in the DARPA Urban Challenge as a ”Track B” competitor. Track B competitors did not receive any financial support from the DARPA compared to ”Track A” competitors. Track A teams had to submit technical proposals to get technology development funding awards up to $1,000,000 in fall 2006. Track B teams had to provide a 5 minutes video demonstrating the vehicles capabilities in April 2007. Using these videos, DARPA selected 53 teams of the initial 89 teams that advanced to the next stage in the Caroline: An Autonomously Driving Vehicle for Urban Environments 445 Fig. 2. 2007 DARPA Grand Challenge Area in Victorville, CA. qualification process, the ”Site Visit” as already conducted in the 2005 Grand Challenge. Team CarOLO got an invitation for a Site Visit that had to take place in the United States. Therefore, team CarOLO accepted gratefully an offer from the Southwest Research Insitute in San Antonio, Texas providing a location for the Site Visit. On June 20, Caroline proved that she was ready for the National Qualification Event in fall 2007. Against great odds, she showed her abilities to the DARPA officials when a huge thunderstorm hit San Antonio during the Site Visit. The tasks to complete included the correct handling of intersection precedence, passing of vehicles, lane keeping and general safe behaviour.