GCDC is a competition modeled on the now famous DARPA Grand Challenges held from 2004-2007. Where the DARPA challenges focused on autonomous vehicles, GCDC will focus on cooperation through communication. The first installment of GCDC will test the participants ability to carry out "platooning", i.e. longitudinal autonomy in order to be able to drive at high speeds with short inter-vehicle spacing, without the typical "shockwave" effects of traditional adaptive cruise controls. The driver is still in the loop however, for example to carry out lateral vehicle movements. In this sense GCDC is aiming to showcase intelligent vehicles that could be on our roads significantly sooner than their fully autonomous DARPA counterparts.
GCDC will formally kick off in March 2010 and the finals will be held in Helmond in September 2011, I will definitely have reason to come back to this event on this blog so stay tuned!
