National Qualification Event
The National Qualification Event for the 2007 challenge occurred between October 26 and 31, 2007. 35 teams were selected to participate in this semifinal round. The qualifying rounds included 3 areas: A, B, and C. Area A was a test of the robots' ability to merge. A 2-way loop of human traffic (provided by professional stunt drivers) surrounded a one-way road running from one side of the loop to the other. Robots had to go from the one-way road, make a left turn into traffic, follow the loop 180 degrees, and make another left turn onto the one-way road again. Robots were free to make as many laps as they could in the allotted time. Area B was mostly closed to spectators except for the start and finish, and involved the robots navigating a long suburban route demonstrating parking, navigation, and avoiding stalled cars along the way. Area B was part of the final event course. In Area C, robots performed several loops into two 4-way intersections in order to test their implementation of 4-way stops. Each loop, human drivers would provide a progressively more difficult intersection situation. At some points in Area C, roads would be blocked to test robots' ability to re-plan routes.
On November 1, 2007 it was announced that there would be only 11 teams competing in the Urban Challenge. The 11 teams selected to compete were the following:
- AnnieWay
- Ben Franklin
- Team CarOLO
- Cornell
- Intelligent Vehicle Systems
- MIT
- Stanford Racing
- Tartan Racing
- Team Oshkosh
- Team UCF
- Victor Tango
DARPA's reasoning for only qualifying 11 teams was primarily safety-related. DARPA felt that since there would be real humans near the robots in the traffic cars as well as DARPA officials scoring robot performance, safety was paramount.
Teams were given sparsely defined waypoints charting the course for the robocars to follow. However, other teams generated a detailed map of the qualifications tracks. A debriefing published by one of the teams illustrates graphically the course it was given by DARPA contrasted against the course used by the winning team.
Read more about this topic: DARPA Grand Challenge (2007)
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