The 3rd November 2007 Darpa Urban Challenge will see a robot car entered that its designers claim is good enough to negotiate its way around town without a driver. This contest comes with a prize of $2 million. The car made its appearance in Germany and looks just like a normal VW Passat from the outside. It is called Junior.

Some of the car's features are -

• Self navigation by GPS
• 64 spinning scanning laser radar sensors
• 6 video cameras
• Computer processing 200 bits of data per second
• Ability to read maps and plan routes

Of course, the military possibilities are going to prove important where battles can be fought with heavy vehicles from hundreds, or thousands of miles away.

Latest - Raytheon are testing a robot car in New Mexico, called "Chrome". This vehicle will also compete in the Urban Challenge later this year.

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