2005 Grand Challenge Archive

Team Mojavaton (mo-HAH-va-tawn) is Colorado's entry in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge. In 2001, Congress set a goal that by the year 2015, one-third of military combat ground vehicles must be capable of driving themselves autonomously. In other words, only on-board computer control without any human input or assistance is used. Unlike the Mars Pathfinder and Predator Drone that transmit video back to a screen at some remote location and a human then decides what to do, autonomous vehicles must possess all of the sensory and intelligence capability to make their own decisions. The motivation for this Congressional action was simple - to save soldiers' lives.

The means to achieve this goal does not yet exist. There are many technologies that can contribute to such a project, but to date, no one has successfully integrated all the necessary systems in a way that would fulfill the requirements. The Grand Challenge is a contest for autonomous ground vehicles that was created by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a division of the Department of Defense, to encourage innovation and "outside the box thinking" in pursuit of this goal.

The first Grand Challenge ran on March 13, 2004. It was a 142 mile course starting in Barstow, California and finishing in Primm, Nevada. The course ran primarily over unpaved roads in the Mojave Desert. The course was defined by 2,586 GPS waypoints that were released to the contestants only 2 hours before the start of the race, so practicing the course was neither permitted nor possible. The prize for the autonomous vehicle that could complete the entire course in the fastest time of less than 10 hours was $1,000,000.

Nobody won the prize. None of the 15 vehicles were able to drive more than 5% of the course before getting stuck in one way or another. You can learn more about that race at www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge and click on "Historical Archive."

In order to continue the technology development that began with GC 2004, DARPA announced Grand Challenge 2005. It will be a similar format with similar rules (see http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/Rules_8oct04.pdf for the rules) and will run on Saturday, October 8, 2005 with a $2,000,000 prize. The location has only been announced as "somewhere in the California/Nevada desert area."

We are outfitting a Nissan Xterra (dubbed the "Xboxx") with navigation and sensor systems to be able to successfully complete this 150 to 175 mile course through the California/Nevada desert using only its on-board computerized systems. No human will be in the vehicle during the race (on board animals are also prohibited). No signals may be transmitted from the vehicle. The team may not provide any control or information to the vehicle once it departs the starting line. Each team's vehicle will be followed through the course by a pickup truck containing a DARPA official to watch the vehicle and assure the safety of the event. Each official will have a wireless emergency stop transmitter capable of stopping the autonomous vehicle if necessary for safety reasons. 

As of June 6th, we are one of 40 teams competing for the 20 available spots in the Grand Challenge 2005, so the competition to get into the race will be very tough. If we are successful, we will be one of the 20 to race, faced with a daunting course containing potholes, washboard roads, sheer drop-offs, a variety of rocks and boulders, man-made obstacles including tank traps, and of course, the other 19 driverless vehicles. We can hardly wait.