The Mojave Desert is not typically a spot for a car race, but these were not your emblematic cars, and this was not your emblematic race. The people was 150 miles of rocks, loose dirt, and constrictive switchbacks — harrowing terrain moreover for the astir rugged vehicles. The evident goal: beryllium the first to transverse the decorativeness statement without crashing, flipping over, aliases catching fire. The prize was $1 million.
The participants looked consecutive retired of Mad Max: military-grade Humvees, dune buggies, motorcycles, and a peculiarly gnarly-looking Acura SUV. No drivers pinch mohawks and enarthrosis pads, unfortunately. No drivers astatine all. This was the DARPA Grand Challenge — the world’s first robot car race.
It was March 13th, 2004, a watershed infinitesimal successful autonomous conveyance history. The Grand Challenge would spell connected to beryllium that robot-powered cars were much than conscionable an illustrated imagination splashed crossed the pages of Popular Science and could do much than springiness Arnold Schwarzenegger a thrust done an underground Martian city. They were existent — possibly not existent capable for nationalist roads, but the kernel of an thought was there, capable to laic the groundwork for a early that intimately resembled the fantasy. Many of the participants successful the title would spell connected to lead successful companies, raise billions of dollars, and deploy thousands of vehicles connected nationalist roads. Others would extremity up disgraced and successful jail.
As for the title itself? Total failure. It almost had to be. Fifteen vehicles started the course, and nary yet crossed the decorativeness line. One deed a berm and flipped over. Another sewage stuck connected a rock. The motorcycle collapsed astatine the starting line. The furthest region traveled by immoderate of the robot cars was little than 8 miles. The million-dollar prize went unclaimed.
But for those who participated, the truth that the title was technically a bust hardly mattered astatine all. There would beryllium different attempts; successful fact, another, much successful title would beryllium held the very adjacent year. But this was the first clip that the thought of an “autonomous vehicle” — what it would look like, what it would return to activity — began to return shape. And the exertion they were championing would service arsenic the instauration for what is shaping up coming to beryllium a historical multibillion-dollar displacement successful transportation.
“If you look astatine the large image of automation, it’s amended that cipher won,” said William “Red” Whittaker, the leader of Carnegie Mellon University’s Red Team astatine the Grand Challenge. “I ne'er learned a damn point from succeeding.”
In 2001, Congress directed the US subject to create uncrewed combat vehicles successful the hopes of keeping soldiers retired of harm’s way. But subject leaders didn’t wholly spot their suppliers to innovate accelerated enough, truthful the task fell connected Tony Tether, who was head of the secretive Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — known arsenic DARPA, fundamentally the skunkworks of the subject — to travel up pinch a supplementary plan.
Tether consulted pinch the agency’s wide counsel and came up pinch the thought of a race, unfastened to the wide public. “I was looking for thing to do to show that autonomy was a bully thing,” Tether said. “So I said, ‘We’ll create a DARPA programme and person a title of immoderate benignant for cars that conscionable tally by themselves.’”
The scheme was to denote the first DARPA Grand Challenge astatine the Petersen Automotive Museum successful Los Angeles successful February 2003. They put the connection retired among startups, engineering colleges, and robotics clubs to travel motion up. Tether guessed it would pull possibly a twelve group astatine best.
But arsenic his car pulled up to the depository for the inaugural session, it was clear that his first assumptions were measurement disconnected base. The statement to get into the arena stretched down the artifact and astir the corner. Hundreds of group had shown up to study much astir the world’s first driverless car race. There were engineers, academics, and entrepreneurs, but besides precocious schoolhouse kids pinch an liking successful robotics. “All kinds of people,” Tether said. “It amazed maine really overmuch liking location was.”
Over 100 teams yet signed up to participate. Some would taxable projects that were already nether development; others would effort to commencement thing from scratch successful the small clip disposable — and often astatine awesome expense. Tether said he sewage an earful from 1 contestant’s woman who had issues pinch the magnitude of clip and money her hubby was spending trying to create his introduction conveyance for the challenge. “She conscionable sewage connected my ass,” he said, laughing. “She said, ‘You know, I really americium pissed disconnected astatine you. My husband’s been spending each this money. He’s trying to owe our house!’”
There were besides plentifulness of group who “should ne'er person been there,” Tether said, truthful he and his squad group astir separating the existent contenders from the little qualified. Eventually, they ended up pinch a database of 25 teams who were invited to the California Speedway successful Fontana, almost 50 miles eastbound of Los Angeles, for a objection arena the week earlier the existent race.
When the teams arrived astatine the track, the vehicles they brought were not the exquisitely designed robot cars we spot connected the roadworthy today. They were trucks, SUVs, Humvees, dune buggies, and that 1 motorcycle, covered successful sponsorship decals and retrofitted pinch protruding sensors and cameras. These were vehicles that would look much astatine location connected the group of TV shows for illustration Robot Wars or BattleBots, and for bully reason: several of the participants were really past contenders.
In his book Driven: The Race to Create the Autonomous Car, writer Alex Davies describes the contestants arsenic “Frankencars.” “Every conveyance looked for illustration it had collapsed into a RadioShack and came retired the different broadside wrapped successful a labyrinth of cables, computers, cameras, radars, laser scanners, antennas, and immoderate other its creators hoped would thief it scope the decorativeness line,” he writes.
After a grueling inspection and qualification period, 15 of the 25 teams survived. While only 7 teams completed the D-shaped speedway course, 8 others came adjacent capable to person judges that they could safely compete.
The contestants were set. It was clip to race.
The teams woke up the greeting of March 13th wished to make history. Ostensibly, the ngo of the Grand Challenge was to prototype caller exertion pinch the “potential for exertion to the capacity of the subject missions,” according to DARPA’s study connected the first race. It was to beryllium a big, splashy objection of autonomous conveyance exertion meant to springiness the apical brass — the guys pinch each the shiny medals connected their chests — thing that could activity for the battlefield.
But for the type civilians connected the 15 racing teams competing that day, the extremity was measurement little martial. “Candidly, I don’t deliberation location was a azygous squad that was really successful it for that purpose,” Whittaker said. “I was successful it to triumph it.”
The database of participants included names that would spell connected to gain immoderate prominence — aliases infamy — in the world of autonomous vehicles. Two different CMU squad members, Sebastian Thrun and Chris Urmson, would later find themselves starring Google’s self-driving car project. The squad that entered the self-driving motorcycle, called Ghostrider, included Anthony Levandowski, who later recovered himself concisely imprisoned aft he was convicted of stealing Google’s waste and acquisition secrets and bringing them to Uber. (Levandowski was later pardoned by then-President Donald Trump.)
But astatine that moment, the only point that mattered was the decorativeness line. Whittaker and CMU’s Red Team were considered the frontrunners. Matching reddish shirts and hats would beryllium their calling card. Their conveyance was a stripped-down, self-driving Hummer called “Sandstorm” that was painted red.
“There is nary much practice, conscionable impeccable execution,” Whittaker wrote successful his online diary chronicling the Red Team’s journey. “Saturday will beryllium a batch of dirt, speed, and brutality. We tin triumph this. Spare nothing. Victory aliases demise.”
As the teams psyched themselves up, Tether was making preparations. He knew the title should beryllium much than a military-only demonstration. He wanted the eyes of the world connected what was happening successful the Mojave, truthful DARPA made judge to induce the media. That included 24/7 cablegram news channels for illustration CNN and respected tech publications for illustration Wired. He besides knew that the attraction could thief thrust applications to assemblage engineering programs and get much group willing successful robotics and automation. He wanted this situation to beryllium a use to the world world arsenic good arsenic the military.
The title commenced astatine dawn. The contestants would spell 1 astatine a time, and whichever conveyance crossed the decorativeness statement fastest would return location the seven-figure prize. DARPA unit members would travel each conveyance pinch their ain human-powered pursuit vehicles, equipped pinch their ain “kill” switches. And unbeknownst to everyone astatine the race, Tether ordered an craft to alert overhead pinch a camera, sending him real-time footage truthful he could beryllium judge to person a bird’s-eye position of the full course.
“[The airplane] was really what gave maine the oversight to cognize that this was really happening,” he said, “so location was nary monkey business going on.”
Based connected its awesome showing astatine the qualifying event, CMU’s Red Team was picked to spell first. The emblem dropped, a siren sounded, and Sandstorm rolled retired of the gross arsenic the crowd shouted from the grandstand.
The first fewer miles were designed to beryllium beautiful simple, getting progressively much difficult arsenic each mile passed. The people included switchbacks, steep climbs, and paths arsenic constrictive arsenic 10 feet. Most importantly, the way was kept concealed from the participants, Col. Jose Negron, a programme head astatine DARPA who designed the course, said successful a 2004 nationalist power interview. (Negron died successful 2022 of pancreatic cancer.) Secrecy was cardinal to ensuring that the tech was real. The quality of the title besides entailed the conveyance to beryllium retired of show from the team’s members for the mostly of the course, which meant location would beryllium nary statement of sight. It was up to the vehicles.
“You cannot traverse the Mojave successful the people that we laid retired conscionable by waypoint pursuing aliases what we telephone world positioning following,” Negron said. “You really person to create the sensor technology.”
Disaster struck early and often. Axion Racing’s modified Jeep pulled a U-turn correct disconnected the starting statement earlier shutting down, according to Davies’ account. The University of Louisiana’s Cajunbot smacked into a wall retired of the chute. Another conveyance drifted excessively acold to the left, up a slope, and past rolled over. The Palos Verdes High School team’s “Doom Buggy,” which was really conscionable an Acura SUV, rolled consecutive up for astir 50 yards earlier smashing into a actual barrier.
Other vehicles wandered disconnected people aliases sewage tangled successful ligament fences. “Terramax,” a 14-ton lime-green subject truck, made it 1.2 miles earlier getting stuck betwixt a brace of bushes its sensors mistook for immovable objects.
Red Team’s Sandstorm kept going, oblivious to the carnage down it. Soon, the Humvee started encountering its ain obstacles. First a fencepost, past a three-foot boulder, which sent it airborne, according to Whittaker’s journal. Then, it struck a stone and plowed to a stop, pinch only its beforehand tires spinning. The computers didn’t cognize the conveyance was stuck, truthful it kept pushing the throttle for respective minutes. The treads burned off, and the rubber melted. As fume poured disconnected the robot vehicle, DARPA’s unit deed the termination switch. Sandstorm had made it 7.4 miles, the farthest ever traveled by a wholly autonomous vehicle. It was some a nonaccomplishment and a watershed infinitesimal successful the history of robotics.
In Reno, Tether walked into a room afloat of journalists and TV cameras who were waiting anxiously for connection connected the outcome. Who won? What was their time? All eyes turned toward him.
“It’s over,” he told the crowd. “The past car is connected fire.”
Most of the group who talk successful hushed tones astir the DARPA Grand Challenge aren’t usually referring to that first grounded race. They’re talking astir the 2 that came after: the 2005 Grand Challenge, which was fundamentally a replay of the first, and past the 2007 Urban Challenge, which simulated a city-like environment. Both were unqualified successes.
Many of the teams from the first Challenge were psyched to effort again, convinced that a fewer speedy fixes were each that was required to move their fortunes around. They were right: each but 1 of the 23 finalists successful the 2005 title surpassed the region completed by Sandstorm successful the 2004 race. Five vehicles successfully completed that year’s 132-mile course, including Whittaker’s Carnegie Mellon team, which came successful second.
The squad from Stanford grabbed the apical prize, a truth that still burns Whittaker. “It was 1 of the worst days of my life,” he said. “It’s conscionable unbelievable to travel backmost pinch an unthinkable capacity and travel successful 2nd to Stanford.”
He had little to mope astir during the 2007 Urban Challenge. The Chevy Tahoe from his Tartan Team, sponsored by General Motors and others, won the apical prize.
That title is the 1 Tether prefers to talk about. DARPA devised a full obstacle course, complete pinch tunnels, roundabouts, and helmeted unit members successful cars pinch title cages to simulate a city-like environment. That was the situation that mostly intimately previewed the world we unrecorded successful now, wherever companies for illustration Waymo, Zoox, and Cruise are trying to make afloat driverless robotaxis activity successful dense, municipality environments.
“Of course, that started the full thing,” Tether said.
But the first Grand Challenge was a method test. Sure, the terrain was harsh, but successful the 2 decades since, we’ve discovered that cities are successful immoderate ways moreover harsher. There person been awesome strides made successful autonomy — fully driverless cars are successful San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin correct now — but skepticism runs high, and galore group stay unconvinced that the exertion is worthy pursuing.
Autonomous vehicles person blocked occurrence engines and metropolis buses, gotten stuck successful intersections, and collided pinch telephone poles. A driverless Cruise conveyance dragged a pedestrian 20 feet to the curb, aft she was struck by a hit-and-run driver. Another personification was killed by a self-driving Uber conveyance successful Tempe, Arizona.
The robot car gyration is facing immoderate very superior questions, astir of which couldn’t person been imagined backmost connected that dusty people successful California successful 2004. Startups person shuttered arsenic backing has dried up. Major automakers person dialed backmost their expectations. And the method challenges stay steep. The sensors are costly and sometimes don’t activity astatine nighttime aliases successful bad weather. And possibly astir of all, quality drivers are unpredictable. There’s a limit to the number of separator cases you tin successfully program.
Experts telephone it “the trough of disillusionment.” Even immoderate of the participants successful the 2004 Grand Challenge now opportunity autonomous vehicles whitethorn return a batch longer earlier they’re afloat fresh for premier time. “You deliberation the machine tin spot everything and tin understand what’s going to hap next,” a post-pardon Levandowski told Bloomberg successful 2022. “But computers are still really dumb.”
Tether takes a longer view. Sure, location person been problems and setbacks. Regrettably, immoderate group person moreover died. But successful his mind, the Grand Challenge served its purpose. It wasn’t meant to beryllium that autonomous vehicles could instantly lick postulation information aliases alteration our built environment. It was meant to beryllium a catalyst, to bring together an improbable group of group to execute thing that’s ne'er been done before. To invent and inspire. He thinks it did the job.
“It’s each happening,” Tether said. “And it’s tracing backmost to the DARPA arena that showed, hey, nary shit, this tin beryllium done.”