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"  VICTORVILLE, Calif. \u2014 The slow-motion finale of the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge is at an end. After spending the night tabulating the run-times for the six robots that finished the 60-mile course yesterday, and weighing their overall speed against potential penalties for moving violations, the officials at DARPA have come up with a winner. Tartan Racing, the joint effort from Carnegie Mellon University and General Motors, beat out arch-rival Stanford University for the $2 million first prize. Stanford took second place, and Virginia Tech&amp;#039;s Victor Tango team took third, winning $1 million and $500,000 respectively. Because of the secretive and unabashedly subjective nature of DARPA&amp;#039;s decision-making process, we may never know exactly why Boss won, or how close Stanford&amp;#039;s Junior did or didn&amp;#039;t come to beating Tartan. Citing the fact that this contest was completely unprecedented, DARPA avoided posting a list of penalties, and reserved the right to adjust the weight of those penalties after the race. But according to Tartan leader William &amp;quot;Red&amp;quot; Whittaker, they won because of planning. &amp;quot;Boss didn&amp;#039;t hesitate,&amp;quot; Whittaker said. &amp;quot;When it came to planning\u2014planning at intersections, planning on straightaways, planning throughout the course\u2014we were unbeatable.&amp;quot; By taking turns without an extra pause to get its bearings, and knowing when the coast was clear enough to gun the engine up to 30 mph (the max speed for the course), Boss may have shaved minutes off its run-time. So in what most analysts and Challenge participants predicted would be a software shoot-out\u2014Boss and Junior use roughly the same type of GPS systems and long and short-range radar and LIDAR sensors\u2014Tartan&amp;#039;s algorithms appear to have come out on top. At least in the context of a race. Even Tartan members admitted that Junior looked the most like a human, or better-than-human, driver. Its ability to consistently center itself in the lane, for example, was downright eerie. But as Tartan members pointed out to me during a qualifying round this summer, Boss was never meant to be graceful. It drives like a race-car. It was programmed to win. And like a good robot, it followed orders, and won. \u2014Erik Sofge Update: According to DARPA Director Tony Tether, Boss came in about 20 minutes ahead of Stanford. That&amp;#039;s less than Tartan was originally expecting, but still a pretty sizable lead. The average speed for Boss was clocked at around 14 mph; Junior&amp;#039;s was approximately 13 mph. And as far as penalties go, DARPA was quietly collecting data from a plane circling overhead throughout the event. The bird&amp;#039;s-eye footage was accurate down to around half a meter, letting officials review each &amp;quot;incident report&amp;quot; collected by observers on the ground. Also, Tether confirmed that MIT was ranked fourth overall, despite a pretty hilarious/depressing/hilarious performance.  And when asked exactly why Terramax was pulled from the race, Tether responded, &amp;quot;Because it was about ready to knock the building down.&amp;quot; Sounds about right.  PLUS: Behind the Scenes of Carnegie Mellon&amp;#039;s Boss (with Test-Drive Video)PLUS: Carnegie Mellon vs. Stanford Is Robot Racing&amp;#039;s Biggest RivalryPLUS: Live Blogging the 2007 DARPA Urban ChallengePODCAST: Tension Pervades at Geeked-Out Race Day "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/a2250/4229973/>