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Domain: theroboticschallenge.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to theroboticschallenge.org.
Stories · 3
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DARPA Wants Atlas Robot To Go Wireless
mikejuk writes: Atlas is a humanoid robot, one of the most advanced in the world. But it's always had cables that provided it with power and made it look a little like a dog on a leash. It was designed to provide a hardware platform for teams competing in the DARPA Robotics Challenge — a competition designed to encourage the construction of an effective disaster response robot. DARPA now says the finals of the challenge later in the year will require that the robots be completely wireless.
Power will be supplied by an onboard 3.7 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery. That battery will drive a variable-pressure pump which operates all of the hydraulic systems. The pump makes ATLAS much quieter, but introduces a complication for the teams: it can be run at low pressure to save power and then switched to high pressure to get harder work done. Managing power consumption will be a very difficult task, but DARPA has also upped the prize money to $3.5 million in total. -
Japanese SCHAFT Takes the Gold at DARPA Robot Challenge
savuporo writes "The two days of DARPA's humanoid robotics challenge are now over. 16 teams entered in three categories — custom built humanoid, DARPA supplied Atlas platform, and a non-humanoid form — and competed in eight different tasks. The all-Japanese SCHAFT team scored 27 out of 32 maximum points, followed by IHMC Robotics and Tartan Rescue, with 20 and 18 points. The tasks included challenges like driving a vehicle, climbing ladders and walls, using handheld tools to cut through walls, etc. All robots had a mix of autonomy and teleoperated controls to accomplish the tasks. Full details on scores can be found here. The eight teams that scored highest will get continued funding from DARPA to compete in the final challenge in 2014. Two NASA teams also entered, and the JPL-built non-humanoid RoboSimian placed 5th, whereas the JSC built and touted 'Valkyrie' came out of competition with zero points. Team SCHAFT and Boston Dynamics (building the Atlas platform) were recently acquired by Google." Reader mikejuk says the scores "[make] the performance sound better than it actually was": " Each task could take 30 minutes and most of the robots took their time and moved as slow as ice. It seems that the teams were precomputing every move and taking a lot of time rather than getting on with the task as quickly as possible. As a result there is farther to go in creating useful rescue bots than the scores might suggest." -
Will the Headless Ape Robot Win the DARPA Challenge?
New submitter pausz42 writes "The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Stanford University are promoting RoboSimian, a simian-inspired robot able to face environments which are hostile for men. In the DARPA Robotics Challenge the selected teams have to develop an autonomous robot able to get into a car, drive it to a disaster site and perform hazardous activities. While this prototype is the only one that that doesn't have a humanoid shape (and it's quite creepy, since it does not have a head), it seems that its three fingered limbs are better fitted for some of the difficult tasks required by the DARPA challenge."