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Urban Challenge

For more information about the DARPA Urban Challenge competitions, visit the Urban Challenge website.

DARPA Urban Challenge

Lincoln Laboratory provides radar capability for MIT's DARPA Urban Challenge vehicle

The 2007 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Urban Challenge was the third in a series of autonomous vehicle demonstrations. The first two involved completion of a 60-mile desert course with no external vehicle control. No vehicles completed the first event, but four succeeded in the second. Vehicles in the third Urban Challenge were required to execute simulated military supply missions in a mock city environment. In this event, vehicles needed to sense and reason about environment, merge into moving traffic, navigate traffic circles, negotiate busy intersections, and avoid obstacles.

Team MIT's Urban Challenge vehicle

The MIT campus team (Team MIT), looking to develop technology beyond this one challenge, emphasized perception of the environment over reliance on GPS dead reckoning. Team MIT had a suite of optical sensors identified (pushbroom and scanning LIDARS and optical cameras) that operated effectively out to a few 10s of meters but lacked a "long-range" capability that appeared to be required from the Urban Challenge scenario descriptions.

Lincoln Laboratory staff members from the Advanced Capabilities Systems and Air Defense Techniques groups (left to right) Robert Galejs, Jonathan Williams, and Siddhartha Krishnamurthy, worked on the radar techniques for Team MIT's Urban Challenge vehicle.

In November 2006, Team MIT presented their plans at Lincoln Laboratory, where suggestions for collaborations were solicited. In December 2006, a Lincoln Laboratory team (Robert Galejs, Jonathan Williams, and Siddhartha Krishnamurthy) was formed (using New Technology Initiatives Program funding) to help develop a long-range radar sensing capability for Team MIT's Urban Challenge entry.

Since the final Urban Challenge event was to be held in November 2007, only existing automotive radars were considered. The Lincoln Laboratory team chose the Delphi automatic cruise control (ACC) radar for this application. The ACC radar was then characterized in the laboratory as well as outdoors for detection and tracking accuracy, sensitivity to multi-radar interference, and clutter rejection. Results of these investigations were shared with Team MIT, who placed 15 of these ACC radars on their vehicle, along with 13 LIDARS, 6 cameras, and a GPS.

From the 89 initial entries, there were 35 semifinalists and 11 finalists, with the field being narrowed down through a series of increasingly difficult site visits and evaluations. Six vehicles successfully completed the final event in which all of the finalists had to complete a series of "missions" in the presence of the other entries and other background traffic driven by stunt drivers. Team MIT came in fourth, largely due to inexperience with dirt roads similar to roads in the first two DARPA challenges in which MIT did not compete. These final events were held at a speed well below that initially described, making the benefit of long-range radar sensing unclear.
However, this collaborative effort between campus and Lincoln Laboratory supported the successful rapid integration of radar sensing capability into Team MIT's Urban Challenge entry.