Building on the success of the 2004 and 2005 Grand Challenges, the DARPA Urban Challenge required teams to build an autonomous vehicle capable of driving in traffic, performing complex maneuvers such as merging, passing, parking, and negotiating intersections.
As the day wore on, it became apparent to all that this race was going to have finishers. At 1:43 pm, Boss, the entry of the Carnegie Mellon Team, Tartan Racing, crossed the finish line first with a run time of just over four hours.
Nineteen minutes later, Stanford University's entry, Junior, crossed the finish line. It was a scene that would be repeated four more times as six robotic vehicles eventually crossed the finish line, an astounding feat for the teams and proving to the world that autonomous urban driving could become a reality.
This event was groundbreaking as the first time autonomous vehicles have interacted with both manned and unmanned vehicle traffic in an urban environment.
