Autonomous Driving - 5 Years after the Urban Challenge: The Anticipatory Vehicle as a Cyber-Physical System

TL;DR

This paper reviews five years of research on autonomous vehicles following the DARPA Urban Challenge, emphasizing the development of anticipatory cyber-physical systems for safe urban driving and outlining future software engineering challenges.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive summary of advancements made by finalists of the Urban Challenge and discusses future research directions for deploying reliable autonomous vehicles in urban settings.

Findings

Significant progress in autonomous vehicle technology over five years.

Identification of key software engineering challenges for urban deployment.

Outlook on the future development of anticipatory cyber-physical systems.

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.