Thirty-five tech-savvy teams will make their way to Victorville, Calif. for the DARPA Urban Challenge National Qualification Event on Oct. 26-31. Each vehicle must navigate a 60-mile mock urban course in six hours while obeying California traffic laws to qualify for the final event, Nov. 3.

While each team has developed a unique vehicle, nearly two-thirds of the vehicles share one thing in common: SICK Laser Measurement System (LMS) Sensors for obstacle detection and vehicle navigation.

“SICK helped us qualify as the third team in the 2005 DARPA Challenge and we expect their products to help us win the 2007 Urban Challenge.”
-Bill Kehaly, Axion Racing Team Leader

“SICK LMS Sensors have provided an effective and easy-to-use obstacle detection capability for all of our autonomous vehicles.”
-Kevin Knoedler, Team SciAutonics/Auburn Engineering

“The SICK LMS units are extremely accurate, durable and fast. They were a key component to our success in our 2005 Grand Challenge and an integral part of our Urban Challenge solution.”
-Grayson Randall, Insight Racing

“The SICK laser sensors cover a 25 m radius around our vehicle. They are an integral part of our sensing system and allow our vehicle to detect obstacles and plan accordingly. Simply put, they are like the eyes of our vehicle. Without them, we’d more or less be driving blind.”
-Jeremy Ma, Team Caltech

“We’ve been working with the SICK LMS series for over three years now. We’ve fused peak communications speed output from multiple LMS Sensors for obstacle detection, vehicle speed detection, and dimensional measurements. We’ve used the LMS on two DARPA Grand Challenge vehicles, farming equipment, industrial automation applications, and even UAVs. The LMS consistently provides us with the optimal combination of resolution, performance, and dependability for our rapidly deployed commercial applications and bleeding edge research applications.”
-Paul Perrone, Team Jefferson

"Austin Robot Technology says the SICK lasers have been the sensor of choice by most teams in the DARPA Grand Challenge."
-Juan Martin-de-Nicolas, Austin Robot Technology

“Our SICK sensors allow us to observe how we and the environment around us occupy a 3D space”
-Troy Takach, Team Juggernaut

"As technology progresses, sensor output is always augmented by the SICK LMS units. The accuracy and precision of the LMS Sensors make SICK the first choice for smaller obstacle detection. VictorTango uses four SICK LMS 291’s on Odin. These are mounted on the top and pointed downward to give a view in front of the vehicle and the sides to cover the blind spot. The LMS units offer a curb finding solution and a drivable coverage area solution.”
-Peter King, VictorTango