The DARPA Urban Challenge, a competition for robotic cars that drive themselves, has finished, with a very impressive six cars completing the entire course. Carnegie Mellon’s “Tartan Racing Team” took first prize. Danger Room notes that DARPA director Tony Tether is feeling the time for academics on the proving ground may be ending:
Tether couldn’t have been more pleased with the race, calling it a “fantastic accomplishment,” and saying that the technology for robotic vehicles was now just about ready for other companies and organizations to pick up the work in honing it further. “DARPA is an interesting organization,” he said. “We really never finish anything. All we really do is show that it can be done. We take the technical excuse off the table, to the point where other people can no longer say ‘Hey this is a very interesting idea, but you know that you can’t do it.’ I think that we’re close to that point, that it’s time for this technology to [be furthered] by somebody else.”
Carnegie Takes First in DARPA’s Urban Challenge [Danger Room]
Go CMU!