Caroline: An Autonomously Driving Vehicle for Urban Environments

TL;DR

Caroline is an autonomous vehicle developed by the Technische Universit"at Braunschweig to compete in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge, demonstrating advanced urban driving capabilities through integrated technology and algorithms.

Contribution

The paper presents Caroline, a novel autonomous vehicle system designed for urban environments, showcasing its development, technology, and performance in a major competition.

Findings

Qualified early for the DARPA Urban Challenge final

Among the top eleven teams in the competition

Demonstrated effective urban autonomous driving capabilities

Abstract

The 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge afforded the golden opportunity for the Technische Universit\"at Braunschweig to demonstrate its abilities to develop an autonomously driving vehicle to compete with the world's best competitors. After several stages of qualification, our team CarOLO qualified early for the DARPA Urban Challenge Final Event and was among only eleven teams from initially 89 competitors to compete in the final. We had the ability to work together in a large group of experts, each contributing his expertise in his discipline, and significant organisational, financial and technical support by local sponsors who helped us to become the best non-US team. In this report, we describe the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge, our contribution "Caroline", the technology and algorithms along with her performance in the DARPA Urban Challenge Final Event on November 3, 2007.