Tomorrow's robots drive, climb, and drill through walls at DARPA trials

[Reefa]

This weekend 17 teams headed down to Homestead, Florida to compete in the DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials, a gauntlet of eight tasks designed to test robots that could aid after natural disasters.

The tasks included driving a vehicle, traversing uneven terrain, climbing a ladder, clearing debris, opening a series of doors, drilling through a wall, opening a valve, and reeling a hose. Teams either built their own robots or wrote software to run on a Boston Dynamics Atlas robot.

It sounds simple for some of the most advanced robots in the world, but only a few teams were able to score full points on any of the tasks, and three teams scored zero points despite spending over two hours trying. Spectators witnessed a lot of falling, restarting, and waiting for robots to move.

The winning robot was the humanoid HRP-2 robot built by Schaft, a Japanese company that was bought by Google this year. The win was no surprise, as Schaft had released videos in advance of its robot completing all the tasks. Schaft scored an incredible 27 out of a possible 32 points.

The runner-up came from the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, a nonprofit research institute, which scored 20 points. Carnegie-Mellon's CHIMP robot, which is 400 pounds and bright red with a 10-foot wing span, came in third with 18 points.

Those three along with teams from MIT, NASA's Jet Propulsion Labs, Lockheed Martin, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and Texas-based TRACLabs will go on to compete for $2 million in the final competition next year.

Check out some photos from the competition and the robotics expo.

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  Carnegie Mellon University's CHIMP (CMU Highly Intelligent Mobile Platform) robot, which has many high-profile sponsors including Google, gets a tread changed.

  
  
  
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  An engineer from Team ViGIR, which includes members from Virginia, Oregon, and Germany, works on their robot Florian.

  
  


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  The team from NASA's Jet Propulsion Labs decided not to build a humanoid robot, instead developing RoboSimian.

  
  


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  Japanese contender Schaft struggled on the first challenge, opening a series of doors, but ended up winning the competition. Schaft is owned by Google.

  
  


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  Hubo, the robot from Drexel University which was also used by the Korean team Kaist, stalls during the driving challenge.

  
  


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  MIT's robot Helios moves pieces of wood out of its way as part of the debris challenge.

  
  


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  The robots were required to have some autonomy so they could theoretically operate in degraded conditions.

  
  


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  The team from IHMC celebrates after their robot scores a perfect four points on the terrain challenge.

  
  


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  An engineer manipulates software to control Drexel University's humanoid robot Hubo.

  
  


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  A monitor in the Drexel University garage displays commands to the team's robot Hubo.

  
  


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  Boston Dynamics' robot LS3 recovers after being pushed while running during a demonstration.

  
  


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  An attendee blocks the sun behind Taurus II, a lightweight, dexterous robot built by SRI Robotics. The robot was one of many on display at the Expo accompanying the trials.

  
  


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  Team IHMC relaxes at the end of the trials after coming in second place.

  
  

Source:http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/22/5235528/next-generation-robots-drive-climb-and-drill-through-walls-at-darpa

[Airstream_Bill]

It is amazing what they are getting robots to do. I have seen a couple of the ones posted on TV specials. I want Robby The Robot though.

[nIGHT]

Why are they doing these things to robots? They will soon revolt with these kind of inrobot treatment. :(

Edited December 24, 2013 by nIGHT

[janedoe]

Search and rescue? Right, that's the sole purpose of these robots... :rolleyes:

Anyway,

* DARPA funds Boston Dynamics

* Boston Dynamics sold to Google, which has bought 8 robotics companies in last 6 months alone

* DARPA holds challenge

* Surprise, surprise, Google owns or has partial ownership in most of the top 8 teams that will receive more DARPA funding

Did Google buy the DARPA Robotics Challenge?

Google should fully fund all 16 DARPA Robotics Challenge Teams!

They own or have partial ownership in most of the top 8 teams that will get DARPA funding for the next years competition. I have to ask Google "If you are backing those teams do they really need money from DARPA?" I thought we had a huge federal deficit by the way?

"Naive maybe but why is Google taking public (DARPA grant) money to pay for its research and development? Yes, they did a good job of buying all the right companies. Most of the funded teams, top 8 use Google robots or are owned by Google. The question that I am asking is why does Google need grant money for research and development? Most of the unfunded teams are universities that need grants to continue their research. Are you saying that Google needs grant money to continue its research?"

"I have yet to see where Google has pledged that all research done with public money will be opened sourced? I think they should at least pledge that."

"I fear that Google is trying to hoard all of the grant money not because they need it but because they are trying to limit competition. Lack of competition could lead to a limited supply and an expensive Google rescue robot. Who would that hurt? The same people who are funding Google's research. So what better way to dismiss these fears than to fund every team so they can compete next year and then let the best robot win? Do we want the best robots sitting at home next year because the team does not have the money to go to the contest?"

"The DRC challenge is to build a robot to save lives. So my question to you is what is the best way to do this? Limit teams and the competition to only Google teams or to open it up to as many teams as possible?"

"The purpose of the DRC challenge was to get as many companies, universities and individuals involved in research and development in the filed of robotics and in developing a rescue robot. It was not setup to fund one companies research only?"

All extremely pertinent questions indeed, with no answers forthcoming from either Google or DARPA. A private hugely profitable company like Google being doled out public funds for R&D is shameful. I'm not claiming there's a huge conspiracy where Google is run by the elite to trample the 99% or whatever ;), but surely something is amiss here. Let them at least pledge that all developments funded by public money will be open sourced and shared with everyone without any legal encumberments. Surely they (and DARPA) owe the people that much.

Edited December 28, 2013 by janedoe