PRIMM, Nev. - Three robotic vehicles cruised past the finish line Saturday in a Pentagon-sponsored race across the rugged Mojave desert, giving scientists hope that robots could one day wage battles without endangering soldiers.
"The impossible has been achieved," said Stanford University's Sebastian Thrun, after the university's customized Volkswagen crossed first. Students hoisted Thrun onto their shoulders.
Also finishing was a converted red Hummer named "H1ghlander" and a Humvee named "Standstorm" from Carnegie Mellon University. The Stanford robot dubbed "Stanley" overtook the top-seeded H1ghlander at the 102-mile mark of the 132-mile course.
The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, plans to award $2-million to the fastest vehicle to cover the race course in less than 10 hours. The taxpayer-funded race was intended to spur innovation and development of robots that could be used on the battlefield without remote controls.
A winner was not immediately declared, because 22 of the 23 robots left the starting line at staggered times at dawn, racing against the clock rather than each other. Stanley finished in less than 7 1/2 hours, and three robots were still on the course.
Last year's much-hyped inaugural robot race ended without a winner when all the self-navigating vehicles broke down shortly after leaving the starting gate.
Carnegie Mellon's Sandstorm chugged the farthest at 7 1/2 miles. Of the 23 robots that competed Saturday, 15 vehicles failed to navigate the entire 132-mile course, but most still managed to beat Sandstorm's mileage last year.
The unmanned vehicles must use their computer brains and sensing devices to follow a programmed route and avoid obstacles.
Vehicles have to drive on rough, winding desert roads and dry lake beds filled with overhanging brush and man-made obstacles. The machines also must traverse a narrow 1.3-mile mountain pass with a steep drop-off and go through three tunnels designed to knock out their GPS signals.
This year's field was more competitive. Even before Saturday's race, many teams tested their vehicles in parts of the Southwest desert under race-like conditions.
The vehicles were tricked out with the latest sensors, lasers, cameras and radar that feed information to onboard computers.
The Grand Challenge race is part of the Pentagon's effort to cut the risk of casualties by fulfilling a congressional mandate to have a third of all military ground vehicles unmanned by 2015.
