DARPA Challenge - Fifteen Teams Qualify to Compete

Grand DARPA Challenge

Fifteen Teams Qualify to Compete

After a week of qualification, inspection and demonstration (QID) at the California Motor Speedway, 15 teams qualified to participate in the DARPA challenge. All teams demonstrated that they could traverse the practice courses safely while avoiding obstacles. The vehicles are all totally autonomous (they have no driver). They will be departing from Barstow, California starting at 6:30 AM on March 13th, 2004. The teams hope to have their robotic vehicles arrive across the desert in Primm, Nevada in under ten hours.

Director of DARPA, Dr. Anthony Tether commented: "When we first came up with the idea of the Grand Challenge, our hope was to attract the most talented and diverse group of teams. The final group of teams shows that our effort to attract top-quality participants has been an unqualified success."

Each competing vehicle will be trailed by a vehicle containing government officials and an emergency stop system to prevent collisions or other unsafe situations. There are boundaries that the vehicles must stay within or be disqualified. Disabled vehicles will be removed from the course.

The selected teams are listed below in official starting order, based on results from the QID:

1. (22) Red Team - Pittsburgh, PA
2. (21) SciAutonics II - Thousand Oaks, CA
3. (05) Team Caltech - Pasadena, CA
4. (07) Digital Auto Drive (DAD) - Morgan Hill, CA
5. (25) Virginia Tech - Blacksburg, VA
6. (23) Axion Racing - Westlake Village, CA
7. (02) Team CajunBot - Lafayette, LA
8. (13) Team ENSCO - Falls Church, VA
9. (04) Team CIMAR - Gainesville, FL and Logan, UT
10. (10) Palos Verdes High School RoadWarriors - Palos Verdes Estates, CA
11. (17) SciAutonics I - Thousand Oaks, CA
12. (20) Team TerraMax - Oshkosh, WI
13. (15) Team TerraHawk - Gardena, CA
14. (09) The Golem Group - Santa Monica, CA
15. (16) The Blue Team - Berkeley, CA