Carnegie Mellon University won the $2 million first place prize in DARPA's urban robot race this weekend, stealing the thunder from 2005's Grand Challenge leader, Stanford University.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Urban Challenge awarded a total of $3.5 million in prizes on Sunday, a day after the race. Stanford University took second place, with a $1 million cash prize, and Virginia Tech won $500,000 for third place.
The Urban Challenge was a six-hour test of driverless vehicles on the suburban roads of the former George Air Force Base in Oro Grande, Calif., where the robotic cars were required to complete three missions while obeying traffic laws and avoiding obstacles and collisions with other driverless vehicles.
Все бы хорошо, но скорость не впечатляет:
CMU's Boss, a modified 2007 Chevy Tahoe, finished the course about 20 minutes faster than Stanford's Junior--an autonomous driving VW Passat. Boss averaged about 14 miles per hour over about 55 miles.
