What is the Grand Challenge?

This "Grand Challenge" is intended to accelerate the development of autonomous vehicle technologies.
DARPA and other US agencies are already funding numerous developments in the robotics vehicle domain.
This specific endeavor, however, is targeted to find smart solutions that are to be tested in a realistic scenario under challenging race conditions - something that has never been done before on this scale.

In July 2002, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced that it would award a cash prize of $1 Million to the team that builds an autonomous robotic ground vehicle that will successfully win a race from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

The race will include on-road and off-road navigation and must be completed in under ten hours. The date of the race is set for March 13, 2004.