A Personal Account of the Development of Stanley, the Robot That Won the DARPA Grand Challenge

This article is my personal account on the work at Stanford on Stanley, the winning robot in the DARPA Grand Challenge. Between July 2004 and October 2005, my then-postdoc Michael Montemerlo and I led a team of students, engineers, and professionals with the single vision of claiming one of the most prestigious trophies in the field of robotics: the DARPA Grand Challenge (DARPA 2004). The Grand Challenge, organized by the U.S. government, was unprecedented in the nation's history. It was the first time that the U.S. Congress had appropriated a cash price for advancing technological innovation. My team won this prize, competing with some 194 other teams.