Over the last few years, there has been a lot of pressure placed on the military to reduce wartime casualties. One of the ways they hope to do this is by employing unmanned ground vehicles. In fact, the military hopes that a full third of its ground vehicles fleet will be unmanned in twenty years. In order to help facillitate innovation in this field, DARPA created the Grand Challenge. The Grand Challenge offers up a $2Mil prize to the top team that finishes its obstacle course. The course itself is meant to simulate the type of terrain found in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq.

A vehicle (diesel powered VW Touareg R5) built by Standford University won this year’s race. Over the 131.6 mile course, the Stanford Racing Team’s vehicle averaged 19.1 mph. Of 23 vehicles competing, only 5 successfully finished the course.

Washington Post