Autonomous driving – 5 years after the urban challenge: the anticipatory vehicle as a cyber-physical system

Abstract

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.