Building robots that can do things as well as humans has been the goal of scientists and engineers for decades. Despite what we see in the movies and on TV, getting a real robot to perform as well as a human can is still an elusive goal. Over the last three years, the USA has sponsored an interesting competition to spur advances in robotics, called the DARPA Grand Challenge. The first two grand challenges were desert road races, using cars that were completely controlled by computers.
