Teams of researchers are hoping to give life to a
six-foot, 330-pound humanoid robot at the the Robotics Challenge in Homestead,
Fla. on Dec. 20 and 21.
The teams are expected to enable the robot -- and
others -- to autonomously walk, use human tools and drive a car.
The event is sponsored by DARPA, or the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency, an arm of the U.S. Department of Defense
that focuses on advanced research.
DARPA said the program at the Homestead Miami
Speedway, is aimed at developing robots capable of working hand-in-hand with
humans during natural or man-made disasters.
"Think of the nuclear plants that were damaged
during the tsunami in Japan," said David Conner, a senior research
scientist with TORC Robotics, whose team is includes with roboticists from Virginia
Polytechnic Institute, better known as Virginia Tech.
"If they could have
gone in and opened some valves to vent some of the hydrogen, they could have
avoided an explosion. If we could have sent a robot in to do that task, it
wouldn't have put humans in danger. That's the motivating goal in this project.
Teams from around the world will be competing to
build the best software for humanoid robots, like Boston Dynamics' Atlas
humanoid robot. (Image: Boston Dynamics)
"We're working to raise the realm of what's
possible," he added.
The test is part of a multi-year competition that's
divided into three phases. The Florida event is the second phase. The final
phase is set for late in 2014. The winner will receive a $2 million prize.
"Robots right now, for the most part, are
either on stationary bases working on repetitive tasks or working in a
lab," said Gill Pratt, a DARPA program manager. "We're trying to move
to task-level autonomy. Instead of saying, 'Move ahead a tenth of an inch,'
we'd say, 'Move forward and open that door.' During a disaster, communications
could be very poor.
The robot needs more smarts to be able to do things on its
own." Robots have yet to reach that level of development.
In fact, to date they are far from it.
However, Peter Neuhaus, a research scientist and
member of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition team, said that
at the close of the current challenge next year, the vision of having a robot
work in a disaster area will be much closer.
The event includes teams from NASA's Jet Propulsion
Labs, MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, Drexel University and Virginia Tech.
They are charged with having their robot complete eight different tasks.
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