Living up to its name, "Boss" has qualified for a trip to California to compete this fall in the Urban Challenge robot race.

Carnegie Mellon University's Tartan Racing is one of 36 teams to qualify for the Urban Challenge National Qualification Event to be held Oct. 26-31.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency -- or DARPA -- in the U.S. Department of Defense also announced that the qualifying and final events will be held at an urban military training facility situated on the former George Air Force Base in Victorville, Calif., northeast of Los Angeles.

The final event featuring 20 robotic vehicles will be held Nov. 3.

"A day like this redoubles the commitment and redoubles the excitement," said William L. "Red" Whittaker, the Carnegie Mellon roboticist who heads Tartan Racing. "Time is ticking."

Each day looms important, he said, in preparing Boss, a 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe, to complete an extended mission through urban terrain in under six hours. Boss uses lasers, radars and cameras to sense roads and other vehicles and has 10 computers and 200,000 lines of software to guide its every action.

DARPA chose the former military base because its network of urban roads best simulates the terrain in which American forces must operate overseas.

"The robotic vehicles will conduct simulated military supply missions at the site," said Tony Tether, DARPA's director.

During qualifying and final events, robotic vehicles must operate entirely autonomously, without human intervention, and obey California traffic laws. Vehicles must merge into moving traffic, navigate traffic circles and avoid moving obstacles, among other challenges. Dr. Tether said the vehicles must perform as well as someone with a California driver's license.

Last fall, 89 teams entered the competition, then the field was pared to 53 in the spring. DARPA announced the 36 semifinalists yesterday, after traveling the United States to put each team's vehicle through sets of qualifying maneuvers.

"The depth and quality of this year's field of competitors is a testimony to how far the technology has advanced since the first Grand Challenge in 2004," Dr. Tether said.

The competition will be the third DARPA has held to foster development of robotic ground vehicle technology to save lives on the battlefield. The agency will award a $2 million prize to the winner, $1 million to the runner-up and $500,000 to the third-place finisher.

"It's true, you have to have superb technology, but 36 teams have had superb technology to make it this far," Dr. Whittaker said.

Each team has advantages and weaknesses, he said, but all will go by the wayside once the vehicles begin the race.

"You can't buy a victory," Dr. Whittaker said. "Humans don't have anything to do with how the robots perform when it really counts."

More information on Tartan Racing is available at www.tartanracing.org.