Of the six teams that completed the DARPA Urban Challenge this weekend, the Tartan Racing Team from Carnegie Mellon University came away with the $2 million first place prize. The fully autonomous Chevy Tahoe navigated an urban environment with the best time and fewest errors. The vehicles had to obey traffic laws and obstacles while getting to their destination with no outside intervention. The $1 million second place prize went to the Stanford Racing team (winner of the previous Grand Challenge desert event) and the Victor Tango team from Virginia Tech took away $500,000 for third place. The technology being developed on this vehicles will hopefully someday make autonomous vehicles practical. In theory at least such vehicles should be able to improve road safety and efficiency by reducing the influence of the biggest variable in vehicle performance, the driver.
[Source: DARPA Urban Challenge]
[Source: DARPA Urban Challenge]
