DARPA unveiled ATLAS, this past Monday, July 8. ATLAS, a six-foot-two 330 pound humanoid robot is one of the most advanced of its kind. ATLAS will serve as the hardware frame in the final stages of the DARPA Robotics Challenge(DRC). Nine teams will compete to teach the robot to perform a series of tasks during a simulated disaster.
There are three tracks of teams in the competition, A,B, and C. Track B/C teams will program ATLAS, designed by Boston Dynamics. Track A teams are developing their own units for the competition. You can find the teams here: http://www.theroboticschallenge.org/Meet.aspx.
Only nine of the original 26 B/C teams remain after the Virtual Robotics Challenge(VRC) which took place this past June. The VRC consisted of a virtual cloud-based simulator that calculated and displayed physical and sensory behaviors of robots in a three-dimensional virtual space. The simulator was developed by the Open Source Robotics Foundation and is available for download: http://gazebosim.org/wiki/InstallDRC
Why has DARPA created this challenge? Because:
Our national security is vulnerable to natural and man-made disasters and there are often limitations to what humans can accomplish to help remedy these situations or mitigate further damage. Today’s robotics are helping, but they are not yet robust enough to function in all environments and perform the basic tasks needed to mitigate a crisis situation.
The goal of the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) is to generate groundbreaking research and development so that future robotics can perform the most hazardous activities in future disaster response operations, in tandem with their human counterparts, in order to reduce casualties, avoid further destruction, and save lives.
Within the coming months, the Challenge will test the participating Teams’ robots ability to work in rough terrain and their capacity to use human aids such as vehicles and hand tools in three events.
You can read more about the challenge at the DARPA Robotics Challenge Website.
You can find the press release here: http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2013/07/11.aspx