Autonomous Driving - 5 Years after the Urban Challenge: The Anticipatory Vehicle as a Cyber-Physical System
This work addresses the challenge of developing mass-market autonomous vehicles for urban environments, but it is incremental as it builds on past competition results.
The paper reviews progress in autonomous driving research over five years following the DARPA Urban Challenge, highlighting that only 11 out of 89 competitors reached the final, with Carnegie Mellon's 'Boss' winning, and identifies ongoing software engineering needs for safe, reliable urban driving.
In November 2007 the international competition DARPA Urban Challenge took place on the former George Airforce Base in Victorville, California to significantly promote the research and development on autonomously driving vehicles for urban environments. In the final race only eleven out of initially 89 competitors participated and "Boss" from Carnegie Mellon University succeeded. This paper summarizes results of the research carried out by all finalists within the last five years after the competition and provides an outlook where further investigation especially for software engineering is now necessary to achieve the goal of driving safely and reliably through urban environments with an anticipatory vehicle for the mass-market.