DARPA Grand Problem: 20 Years Later

The 2004 DARPA Grand Problem was a spectacular failure. The Protection Superior Analysis Initiatives Company had provided a US $1 million prize for the workforce that would design an autonomous floor automobile able to finishing an off-road course by way of typically flat, typically winding and mountainous desert terrain. As IEEE Spectrumreported on the time, it was “the motleyest assortment of automobiles assembled in a single place because the filming of Mad Max 2: The Street Warrior.” Not a single entrant made it throughout the end line. Some didn’t make it out of the car parking zone.

Movies of the makes an attempt are comical, though any laughter comes on the expense of the numerous engineers who spent numerous hours and thousands and thousands of {dollars} to get to that time.

So it’s all of the extra outstanding that within the second DARPA Grand Problem, only a yr and a half later, 5 automobiles crossed the end line. Stanley, developed by the Stanford Racing Group, eked out a first-place win to say the $2 million purse. This modified Volkswagen Touareg [shown at top] accomplished the 212-kilometer course in 6 hours, 54 minutes. Carnegie Mellon’s Sandstorm and H1ghlander took second and third place, respectively, with instances of seven:05 and seven:14.

Kat-5, sponsored by the Grey Insurance coverage Co. of Metairie, La., got here in fourth with a good 7:30. The automobile was named after Hurricane Katrina, which had simply pummeled the Gulf Coast a month and a half earlier. Oshkosh Truck’s TerraMax additionally completed the circuit, though its time of 12:51 exceeded the 10-hour time restrict set by DARPA.

So how did the Grand Problem go from a complete bust to having 5 sturdy finishers in such a brief time period? It’s undoubtedly a testomony to what could be achieved when engineers rise to a problem. However the consequence of this one race was preceded by a for much longer path of analysis, and that plus somewhat little bit of luck are what finally led to victory.

Earlier than Stanley, there was Minerva

Let’s again as much as 1998, when pc scientist Sebastian Thrun was working at Carnegie Mellon and experimenting with a really completely different robotic: a museum tour information. For 2 weeks in the summertime, Minerva, which regarded a bit like a Dalek from “Physician Who,” navigated an exhibit on the Smithsonian Nationwide Museum of American Historical past. Its major job was to roll round and dispense nuggets of details about the shows.

Minerva was a museum tour-guide robotic developed by Sebastian Thrun.

In an interview on the time, Thrun acknowledged that Minerva was there to entertain. However Minerva wasn’t only a folks pleaser ; it was additionally a machine studying experiment. It needed to be taught the place it may safely maneuver with out taking out a customer or a priceless artifact. Customer, nonvisitor; show case, not-display case; open flooring, not-open flooring. It needed to react to people crossing in entrance of it in unpredictable methods. It needed to be taught to “see.”

Quick-forward 5 years: Thrun transferred to Stanford in July 2003. Impressed by the primary Grand Problem, he organized the Stanford Racing Group with the purpose of fielding a robotic automotive within the second competitors.

In an enormous oversimplification of Stanley’s major job, the autonomous robotic needed to differentiate between highway and not-road so as to navigate the route efficiently. The Stanford workforce determined to focus its efforts on growing software program and used as a lot off-the-shelf {hardware} as they might, together with a laser to scan the quick terrain and a easy video digicam to scan the horizon. Software program overlapped the 2 inputs, tailored to the altering highway situations on the fly, and decided a protected driving pace. (For extra technical particulars on Stanley, try the workforce’s paper.) A remote-control kill change, which DARPA required on all automobiles, would deactivate the automotive earlier than it may develop into a hazard. About 100,000 traces of code did that and far more.

The Stanford workforce hadn’t entered the 2004 Grand Problem and wasn’t anticipated to win the 2005 race. Carnegie Mellon, in the meantime, had two entries—a modified 1986 Humvee and a modified 1999 Hummer—and was the clear favourite. Within the 2004 race, CMU’s Sandstorm had gone furthest, finishing 12 km. For the second race, CMU introduced an improved Sandstorm in addition to a brand new automobile, H1ghlander.

Lots of the different 2004 rivals regrouped to attempt once more, and new ones entered the fray. In all, 195 groups utilized to compete within the 2005 occasion. Groups included college students, lecturers, trade consultants, and hobbyists.

After web site visits within the spring, 43 groups made it to the qualifying occasion, held 27 September by way of 5 October on the California Speedway, in Fontana. Every automobile took 4 runs by way of the course, navigating by way of checkpoints and avoiding obstacles. A complete of 23 groups have been chosen to aim the primary course throughout the Mojave Desert. Competing was a expensive endeavor—CMU’s Purple Group spent greater than $3 million in its first yr—and the names of sponsors have been splashed throughout the automobiles just like the logos on race automobiles.

Within the early hours of 8 October, the finalists gathered for the massive race. Every workforce had a staggered begin time to assist keep away from congestion alongside the route. About two hours earlier than a workforce’s begin, DARPA gave them a CD containing roughly 3,000 GPS coordinates representing the course. As soon as the workforce hit go, it was palms off: The automotive needed to drive itself with none human intervention. PBS’s NOVA produced a superb episode on the 2004 and 2005 Grand Challenges that I extremely suggest if you wish to get a really feel for the thrill, anticipation, disappointment, and triumph.

Within the 2005 Grand Problem, Carnegie Mellon College’s H1ghlander was certainly one of 5 autonomous automobiles to complete the race.Damian Dovarganes/AP

H1ghlander held the pole place, having positioned first within the qualifying rounds, adopted by Stanley and Sandstorm. H1ghlander pulled forward early and shortly had a considerable lead. That’s the place luck, or fairly the shortage of it, got here in.

About two hours into the race, H1ghlander slowed down and began rolling backward down a hill. Though it will definitely resumed shifting ahead, it by no means regained its prime pace, even on lengthy, straight, stage sections of the course. The slower however steadier Stanley caught as much as H1ghlander on the 163-km (101.5-mile) marker, handed it, and by no means let go of the lead.

What went incorrect with H1ghlander remained a thriller, even after intensive postrace evaluation. It wasn’t till 12 years after the race—and as soon as once more confidently—that CMU found the issue: Urgent on a small digital filter between the engine management module and the gasoline injector induced the engine to lose energy and even flip off. Group members speculated that an accident just a few weeks earlier than the competitors had broken the filter. (To be taught extra about how CMU lastly figured this out, see Spectrum Senior Editor Evan Ackerman’s 2017 story.)

The Legacy of the DARPA Grand Problem

No matter who received the Grand Problem, many success tales got here out of the competition. A yr and a half after the race, Thrun had already made nice progress on adaptive cruise management and lane-keeping help, which is now available on many industrial automobiles. He then labored on Google’s Road View and its preliminary self-driving automobiles. CMU’s Purple Group labored with NASA to develop rovers for probably exploring the moon or distant planets. Nearer to dwelling, they helped develop self-propelled harvesters for the agricultural sector.

Stanford workforce chief Sebastian Thrun holds a $2 million test, the prize for successful the 2005 Grand Problem.Damian Dovarganes/AP

In fact, there was additionally a variety of hype, which tended to overshadow the race’s militaristic origins—bear in mind, the “D” in DARPA stands for “protection.” Again in 2000, a protection authorization invoice had stipulated that one-third of the U.S. floor fight automobiles be “unmanned” by 2015, and DARPA conceived of the Grand Problem to spur growth of those autonomous automobiles. The U.S. navy was nonetheless combating within the Center East, and DARPA promoters believed self-driving automobiles would assist decrease casualties, significantly these attributable to improvised explosive units.

DARPA sponsored extra contests, such because the 2007 City Problem, during which automobiles navigated a simulated metropolis and suburban setting; the 2012 Robotics Problem for disaster-response robots; and the 2022 Subterranean Problem for—you guessed it—robots that would get round underground. Regardless of the competitions, continued navy conflicts, and hefty authorities contracts, precise advances in autonomous navy automobiles and robots didn’t take off to the extent desired. As of 2023, robotic floor automobiles made up solely 3 p.c of the worldwide armored-vehicle market.

At this time, there are only a few totally autonomous floor automobiles within the U.S. navy; as an alternative, the providers have solid forward with semiautonomous, operator-assisted programs, similar to remote-controlled drones and ship autopilots. The one Grand Problem finisher that continued to work for the U.S. navy was Oshkosh Truck, the Wisconsin-based sponsor of the TerraMax. The corporate demonstrated a palletized loading system to move cargo in unmanned automobiles for the U.S. Military.

A lot of the up to date reporting on the Grand Problem predicted that self-driving automobiles would take us nearer to a “Jetsons” future, with a self-driving automobile to ferry you round. However twenty years after Stanley, the rollout of civilian autonomous automobiles has been confined to particular purposes, similar to Waymo robotaxis transporting folks round San Francisco or the GrubHub Starships struggling to ship meals throughout my campus on the College of South Carolina.

I’ll be watching to see how the expertise evolves outdoors of huge cities. Self-driving automobiles could be nice for lengthy distances on empty nation roads, however components of rural America nonetheless wrestle to get sufficient cellphone protection. Will small cities and the areas that encompass them have the bandwidth to accommodate autonomous automobiles? As a lot as I’d prefer to suppose self-driving autos are almost right here, I don’t anticipate finding one below my carport anytime quickly.

A Story of Two Stanleys

Not lengthy after the 2005 race, Stanley was able to retire. Recalling his expertise testing Minerva on the Nationwide Museum of American Historical past, Thrun thought the museum would make a pleasant dwelling. He loaned it to the museum in 2006, and since 2008 it has resided completely within the museum’s collections, alongside different outstanding specimens in robotics and cars. In actual fact, it isn’t even the primary Stanley within the assortment.

Stanley now resides within the collections of the Smithsonian Establishment’s Nationwide Museum of American Historical past, which additionally homes one other Stanley—this 1910 Stanley Runabout. Behring Middle/Nationwide Museum of American Historical past/Smithsonian Establishment

That distinction belongs to a 1910 Stanley Runabout, an early steam-powered automotive launched at a time when it wasn’t but clear that the internal-combustion engine was the best way to go. Regardless of clear drawbacks—steam engines had a nasty tendency to blow up—“Stanley steamers” have been identified for his or her effective craftsmanship. Fred Marriott set the land pace document whereas driving a Stanley in 1906. It clocked in at 205.5 kilometers per hour, which was considerably sooner than the Twenty first-century Stanley’s common pace of 30.7 km/hr. To be honest, Marriott’s Stanley was racing over a flat, straight course fairly than the off-road terrain navigated by Thrun’s Stanley.

Throughout the century that separates the 2 Stanleys, it’s straightforward to hint a story of progress. Each are clearly recognizable as four-wheeled land automobiles, however I believe the science-fiction dreamers of the early twentieth century would have been hard-pressed to think about the suite of applied sciences that may propel a Twenty first-century self-driving automotive. What’s going to the automobiles of the early twenty second century be like? Will they even have 4 tires, or will they run on one thing totally new?

A part of a persevering with sequence historic artifacts that embrace the boundless potential of expertise.