Boss wins the race

A self-driving SUV developed by Carnegie Mellon University's Tartan Racing has won the $2m first prize in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Urban Challenge.

The event, which was held last Saturday, pitted eleven autonomous vehicles against each other on a course of suburban and urban roadways.

After reviewing judges' scorecards overnight, DARPA officials concluded that Boss, a robotised 2007 Chevy Tahoe, followed California driving laws as it navigated the course and that it operated in a safe and stable manner.

One of the team's advantages was a software system it developed called TROCS, which produced graphic animations of Boss's sensor and data inputs during each run. TROCS enabled Tartan Racing to understand what Boss saw as it drove and how and why it responded to its environment. Troublesome behaviours could be quickly identified and fixed, while appropriate behaviours, which might occasionally look odd to an observer, were left untouched.