Defense Advanced Research Project Agency - DARPA
2005 DARPA Grand Challenge
DARPA is seeking to promote various technical approaches that will enable the autonomous operation of unmanned ground combat vehicles.
Autonomous vehicles must navigate from point to point in an intelligent manner so as to avoid or accommodate obstacles and other impediments to the completion of their missions. For example, an extremely large vehicle that simply travels on a straight line between two points by climbing over or breaking through everything in its path (and destroying what cannot support that movement) is not the type of intelligent solution that is sought.
U.S. Federal Government organizations, including U.S. Military Service Academies, are ineligible to lead a team or participate as a member of a team, for this event.