The first robot car race was a historic moment — and a complete failure

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, escaped dirt, and constrictive switchbacks — harrowing terrain adjacent for the astir rugged vehicles. The evident goal: beryllium the archetypal to transverse the decorativeness enactment without crashing, flipping over, oregon 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 with mohawks and enarthrosis pads, unfortunately. No drivers astatine all. This was the DARPA Grand Challenge — the world’s archetypal 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 phantasy splashed crossed the pages of Popular Science and could bash 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 aboriginal that intimately resembled the fantasy. Many of the participants successful the contention would spell connected to pb palmy companies, rise billions of dollars, and deploy thousands of vehicles connected nationalist roads. Others would extremity up disgraced and successful jail.

As for the contention itself? Total failure. It astir had to be. Fifteen vehicles started the course, and nary yet crossed the decorativeness line. One deed a berm and flipped over. Another got 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 information that the contention was technically a bust hardly mattered astatine all. There would beryllium different attempts; successful fact, another, much palmy contention would beryllium held the precise adjacent year. But this was the archetypal clip that the thought of an “autonomous vehicle” — what it would look like, what it would instrumentality to enactment — began to instrumentality shape. And the exertion they were championing would service arsenic the instauration for what is shaping up contiguous to beryllium a historical multibillion-dollar displacement successful transportation.   

“If you look astatine the large representation of automation, it’s amended that cipher won,” said William “Red” Whittaker, the person of Carnegie Mellon University’s Red Team astatine the Grand Challenge. “I ne'er learned a damn happening from succeeding.”

In 2001, Congress directed the US subject to make 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 manager of the secretive Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — known arsenic DARPA, fundamentally the skunkworks of the subject — to travel up with a supplementary plan. 

Tether consulted with the agency’s wide counsel and came up with the thought of a race, unfastened to the wide public. “I was looking for thing to bash to amusement that autonomy was a bully thing,” Tether said. “So I said, ‘We’ll make a DARPA programme and person a contention of immoderate benignant for cars that conscionable tally by themselves.’”

The program was to denote the archetypal DARPA Grand Challenge astatine the Petersen Automotive Museum successful Los Angeles successful February 2003. They enactment the connection retired among startups, engineering colleges, and robotics clubs to travel motion up. Tether guessed it would pull possibly a twelve radical astatine best. 

But arsenic his car pulled up to the depository for the inaugural session, it was wide that his archetypal assumptions were mode disconnected base. The enactment to get into the lawsuit stretched down the artifact and astir the corner. Hundreds of radical had shown up to larn much astir the world’s archetypal driverless car race. There were engineers, academics, and entrepreneurs, but besides precocious schoolhouse kids with an involvement successful robotics. “All kinds of people,” Tether said. “It amazed maine however overmuch involvement determination 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 large expense. Tether said helium got an earful from 1 contestant’s woman who had issues with the magnitude of clip and wealth her hubby was spending trying to make his introduction conveyance for the challenge. “She conscionable got connected my ass,” helium said, laughing. “She said, ‘You know, I truly 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 radical who “should ne'er person been there,” Tether said, truthful helium and his squad acceptable astir separating the existent contenders from the little qualified. Eventually, they ended up with a database of 25 teams who were invited to the California Speedway successful Fontana, astir 50 miles eastbound of Los Angeles, for a objection lawsuit 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 with protruding sensors and cameras. These were vehicles that would look much astatine location connected the acceptable of TV shows similar Robot Wars or BattleBots, and for bully reason: several of the participants were really past contenders. 

In his publication Driven: The Race to Create the Autonomous Car, writer Alex Davies describes the contestants arsenic “Frankencars.” “Every conveyance looked similar it had crashed 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 assistance it scope the decorativeness line,” helium writes. 

After a grueling inspection and qualification period, 15 of the 25 teams survived. While lone 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 determined to marque history. Ostensibly, the ngo of the Grand Challenge was to prototype caller exertion with the “potential for exertion to the show of the subject missions,” according to DARPA’s study connected the archetypal race. It was to beryllium a big, splashy objection of autonomous conveyance exertion meant to springiness the apical brass — the guys with each the shiny medals connected their chests — thing that could enactment for the battlefield. 

But for the assorted civilians connected the 15 racing teams competing that day, the extremity was mode little martial. “Candidly, I don’t deliberation determination was a azygous squad that was truly 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 — oregon infamy — in the satellite of autonomous vehicles. Two different CMU squad members, Sebastian Thrun and Chris Urmson, would aboriginal find themselves starring Google’s self-driving car project. The squad that entered the self-driving motorcycle, called Ghostrider, included Anthony Levandowski, who aboriginal recovered himself concisely imprisoned aft helium was convicted of stealing Google’s commercialized secrets and bringing them to Uber. (Levandowski was aboriginal pardoned by then-President Donald Trump.)

But astatine that moment, the lone happening 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 volition beryllium a batch of dirt, speed, and brutality. We tin triumph this. Spare nothing. Victory oregon demise.”

As the teams psyched themselves up, Tether was making preparations. He knew the contention should beryllium much than a military-only demonstration. He wanted the eyes of the satellite connected what was happening successful the Mojave, truthful DARPA made definite to invitation the media. That included 24/7 cablegram quality channels similar CNN and respected tech publications similar Wired. He besides knew that the attraction could assistance thrust applications to assemblage engineering programs and get much radical funny successful robotics and automation. He wanted this situation to beryllium a payment to the world satellite arsenic good arsenic the military. 

The contention commenced astatine dawn. The contestants would spell 1 astatine a time, and whichever conveyance crossed the decorativeness enactment fastest would instrumentality location the seven-figure prize. DARPA unit members would travel each conveyance with their ain human-powered pursuit vehicles, equipped with their ain “kill” switches. And unbeknownst to everyone astatine the race, Tether ordered an craft to alert overhead with a camera, sending him real-time footage truthful helium could beryllium definite to person a bird’s-eye presumption of the full course.

“[The airplane] was truly what gave maine the oversight to cognize that this was truly happening,” helium said, “so determination was nary monkey concern 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 assemblage cheered from the grandstand.

The archetypal fewer miles were designed to beryllium beauteous simple, getting progressively much hard 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 manager astatine DARPA who designed the course, said successful a 2004 nationalist vigor interview. (Negron died successful 2022 of pancreatic cancer.) Secrecy was cardinal to ensuring that the tech was real. The quality of the contention besides entailed the conveyance to beryllium retired of show from the team’s members for the bulk of the course, which meant determination would beryllium nary enactment of sight. It was up to the vehicles. 

“You cannot traverse the Mojave successful the people that we laid retired conscionable by waypoint pursuing oregon what we telephone planetary positioning following,” Negron said. “You truly person to make the sensor technology.” 

Disaster struck aboriginal and often. Axion Racing’s modified Jeep pulled a U-turn close disconnected the starting enactment earlier shutting down, according to Davies’ account. The University of Louisiana’s Cajunbot smacked into a partition 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 truly conscionable an Acura SUV, rolled consecutive up for astir 50 yards earlier smashing into a factual barrier. 

Other vehicles wandered disconnected people oregon got 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, with lone 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 past of robotics.

In Reno, Tether walked into a country 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,” helium told the crowd. “The past car is connected fire.” 

Most of the radical who speech successful hushed tones astir the DARPA Grand Challenge aren’t usually referring to that archetypal failed 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 archetypal Challenge were psyched to effort again, convinced that a fewer speedy fixes were each that was required to crook their fortunes around. They were right: each but 1 of the 23 finalists successful the 2005 contention 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 information that inactive burns Whittaker. “It was 1 of the worst days of my life,” helium said. “It’s conscionable unbelievable to travel backmost with an unthinkable capableness 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 contention is the 1 Tether prefers to speech about. DARPA devised a full obstacle course, implicit with tunnels, roundabouts, and helmeted unit members successful cars with contention cages to simulate a city-like environment. That was the situation that mostly intimately previewed the satellite we unrecorded successful now, wherever companies similar Waymo, Zoox, and Cruise are trying to marque afloat driverless robotaxis enactment successful dense, municipality environments. 

“Of course, that started the full thing,” Tether said. 

But the archetypal 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 adjacent harsher. There person been large strides made successful autonomy — fully driverless cars are successful San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin close present — but skepticism runs high, and galore radical stay unconvinced that the exertion is worthy pursuing. 

Autonomous vehicles person blocked occurrence engines and metropolis buses, gotten stuck successful intersections, and collided with 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 idiosyncratic was killed by a self-driving Uber conveyance successful Tempe, Arizona. 

The robot car gyration is facing immoderate precise 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 enactment astatine nighttime oregon successful atrocious weather. And possibly astir of all, quality drivers are unpredictable. There’s a bounds to the fig of borderline cases you tin successfully program.  

Experts telephone it “the trough of disillusionment.” Even immoderate of the participants successful the 2004 Grand Challenge present accidental autonomous vehicles whitethorn instrumentality a batch longer earlier they’re afloat acceptable for premier time. “You deliberation the machine tin spot everything and tin recognize what’s going to hap next,” a post-pardon Levandowski told Bloomberg successful 2022. “But computers are inactive truly dumb.”

Tether takes a longer view. Sure, determination person been problems and setbacks. Regrettably, immoderate radical person adjacent 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 oregon alteration our built environment. It was meant to beryllium a catalyst, to bring unneurotic an improbable radical of radical 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 lawsuit that showed, hey, nary shit, this tin beryllium done.”