Google hired many of those involved in the DARPA Urban challenge, and they are leading the effort. In particular, Sebastian Thrun, who appears to be in charge of Google's program, was the head of the winning Stanford team.
Additionally, Google's cars are already far more sophisticated than those that won the Challenge, which involved navigating a relatively simplistic simulated urban environment. According to their blog post on the subject [0] Google has been running their autonomous cars on real roads and highways in real traffic, a dramatically harder problem.
Additionally, Google's cars are already far more sophisticated than those that won the Challenge, which involved navigating a relatively simplistic simulated urban environment. According to their blog post on the subject [0] Google has been running their autonomous cars on real roads and highways in real traffic, a dramatically harder problem.
[0] http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/what-were-driving-at....