Road Warriors: Robotic vehicles triumph over desert obstacles

Demonstrating unprecedented prowess in robotics and artificial intelligence, five unmanned, autonomous vehicles last weekend dashed all the way across a rugged, 210-kilometer stretch of the Mojave Desert.

ROBO UNO. About to cross the finish line, the driverless vehicle dubbed Stanley traversed hundreds of kilometers of rough terrain without human assistance. D. Orenstein/Stanford

Eighteen other vehicles also began the off-road race near the California-Nevada border on Saturday morning, Oct.