DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is going to hold its third Grand Challenge in November 2007. Even this early on it has already succeeded in attracting a slew of really good competitors. The 53 teams that are lined-up for the qualification process will be expecting to be visited by the DARPA officials starting this June. The semi-finalist will be chosen depending on the officials’ assessment of the team’s technical paper as well as the vehicle’s performance during the site visits.

For those not too familiar with DARPA’s Grand Challenge it is simply an autonomous vehicle research and development program whose aim is to develop technology that will keep warfighters (meaning soldiers) off the battlefield and thus reduce casualties associated to wars. This year it is an Urban Challenge meaning the challenge will test autonomous ground vehicles by making them maneuver in a mock city environment as the vehicles tries to execute mock military supply missions. Of course the goal is to see which vehicle performs the best in terms of speed, agility, and ability to actually navigate streets with plenty of obstacles and traffic.

The prize for winning second and third place in this year’s Urban Challenge is $1million and $500,000 respectively. The team with the fastest vehicle will take home a whopping $2million. Despite the really large cash prize, it seems that most of the teams joining the Urban Challenge are in it more for the bragging rights.

Stanford University (winner of the Desert Challenge in 2005) and Carnegie Melon (runner-up in 2005) have both signed up for this year’s Urban Challenge, which will of course make the competition very interesting.