Photos by Jason Redmond / Star staff A DARPA official watches as the SciAutonics/Auburn School of Engineering team's vehicle, the Red Rascal, drives itself during a test at the DARPA Urban Challenge in Victorville.

VICTORVILLE — A week from today, vehicles that drive themselves will line up to race through mock neighborhoods and navigate turnabouts as the Urban Challenge presents the first test of these autonomous vehicles in a more urban setting.

On Friday, 35 semifinalists for the race gathered around their sensor-laden vehicles with laptops, working hard to get them in top condition for six days of testing to determine who will qualify for the finals. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, which is putting on the race, started Friday with inspections and testing whether the vehicles can make emergency stops.

The Urban Challenge National Qualification Event started at the end of a long week of wildfires in Southern California. The disaster created challenges for some teams before they even got to the test site in Victorville. Some participants had to figure out how to reach the area without running into road closures.

Most of the Axion Racing engineers live in San Diego — the area most devastated by wildfires — even though the team is based in Westlake Village.

Though it was touch and go for a few days, team members made their way to Victorville with "Spirit," complete with its blue surfboards on the roof.

The SciAutonics team of Thousand Oaks has had little time for testing because its vehicle didn't arrive in Victorville from Auburn University until Wednesday.

"We were working late last night," said SciAutonics team leader John Porter. "Hopefully today, it will run smoothly. There are some things being tested for the first time."

To accommodate teams having trouble because of the fires, the qualification event schedule was pushed back about a half-day, with Friday devoted to safety testing. Further tests to determine the finalists are expected to start today and will run through Wednesday.

The Urban Challenge picks up two years after DARPA's last Grand Challenge in 2005. The major difference is paved roads.

Cars think for themselves

The Grand Challenge race was first held in 2004. It was designed to stir ideas about creating autonomous vehicles that make decisions while driving themselves. DARPA's goal is to develop unmanned vehicles for military use.

In previous years, the race has taken place in the desert. Vehicles were programmed with different "waypoints" — places along the way they needed to navigate to get to the finish line.

No one won the first race.

In 2005, Stanford University's "Stanley" was the first to drive across the finish line and the team won a $2 million prize. Three other vehicles finished that race within the allotted 10 hours.

That success led DARPA to up the ante this year. The vehicles now have to find their way around an urban setting, driving with traffic, merging and avoiding obstacles.

Aside from the technical rules posted for the race, DARPA has a copy of the California Driver Handbook. That's because the vehicles are expected to follow California's rules of the road.

The setting for this year's race had to be somewhere with an urban feel, but out of the way so a vehicle wouldn't run someone over if there is a miscalculation.

The former George Air Force Base in Victorville was selected because an urban military training facility on site has a network of roads similar to the type of terrain U.S. forces might face when deployed overseas.

The autonomous vehicles will conduct simulated military supply missions as the main objective of the race.

The base site has an eerie, abandoned feel. Cinder-block homes with all of their windows broken out sit on blocked off streets. Former theaters and school gyms, once painted in bright colors, have faded to almost match the surrounding desert. White barriers and chain-link fences create a maze that makes it difficult to navigate directly from one location to another.

Financing the race

In practice areas surrounded by white barriers, vehicles of different sizes and shapes ran through their safety testing Friday.

This year, some teams started with $1 million in their pockets. DARPA reviewed 65 proposals and awarded funding to 11 teams to develop vehicles.

Other teams provided their own funding.

That has been a challenge for some teams with good ideas but shallow pockets.

Take SciAutonics. Not only did the team not get DARPA funding, but filing errors for its incorporation paperwork as a company also have made it difficult for the team to get funding.

Really, the investment has almost all come from the Auburn School of Engineering, the other half of the team.

The team had to spend quite a bit because its previous vehicle, "Rascal," is an ATV, which is not allowed in the Urban Challenge.

SciAutonics now is fielding "Red Rascal," a sport utility vehicle purchased from another Grand Challenge team.

Transferring technology from one vehicle to another has created some headaches.

Porter said the Auburn part of the team has been working to rebuild some of the car's automation systems, leaving the SciAutonics part of the team to handle software development — almost entirely using a simulator.

The team was busy Friday afternoon testing Red Rascal on a dry lake bed.

Porter said the lack of funding means the team has a "competent autonomous vehicle," but with limited extras, such as more sensors.

Dennis McCormick, center, and other DARPA officials watch qualification races. Entrants' vehicles must go through seven tests before Saturday's event.

"We hope to survive the (qualifying event) part of the competition and be selected as a finalist," he said. "We don't expect to outperform any of the big-budget teams, but we hope to be able to hold our heads high as we compete as an ultra-low-budget team."

Funding frustrations

Bill Kehaly, team leader for Axion Racing, was upset that one of the teams that received the $1 million in funding won't even be participating in the race.

With that money, he said, Axion could have brought its vehicle, "Spirit," to the point where it could be driving on freeways.

That was the only area he said the SUV fell short in, and since that's not a part of this year's challenge, he's feeling pretty good about Spirit's possible showing.

Kehaly said driving in traffic is a definite challenge. The team has driven the SUV autonomously in traffic for more than 20 miles on a few occasions in San Diego, and each test turns up new things to worry about, he said.

But the vehicle was about 80 percent ready at the end of the last challenge and the whole team has returned this year.

"They've already spent so much time, and they understand and believe in the technology," he said.

The teams to beat this year are the big guys with a lot of time, vehicles and money, he said. In Kehaly's book, that means Carnegie Mellon, Stanford and Oshkosh.

"We have to beat one of them if I want to cash a check," he said.

The winner will go home with $2 million, second place will get $1 million and third place will net $500,000. Vehicles must finish within six hours, but also will be judged on how well they do. DARPA officials have said vehicles may complete the course in time and still no one might win.

On the Net:

www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge