DARPA Challenge Seeks Robots to Drive Into Disasters

[ACM TechNews]

  Excerpted from ACM TechNews, Wednesday, April 11, 2012
  Read the TechNews Online at: http://technews.acm.org

J. Nicholas Hoover, DARPA Challenge Seeks Robots to Drive Into Disasters,
*Information Week* 10 Apr 2012

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced the
Robotics Challenge, which will offer a $2 million prize to anyone who can
build a robot capable of navigating disaster-response scenarios and using
human devices that range from hand tools to vehicles.  The challenge aims to
improve the ability of robots to navigate rough terrain at disaster sites,
operate vehicles, and use common tools, as well as to make robot hardware
and software development more accessible.  As part of the challenge, robots
will be required to complete several discrete tasks, including traveling
across rubble, removing debris from a blocked entryway, climbing a ladder,
and entering and driving a car.  DARPA says it will provide "a robotic
hardware platform with arms, legs, torso, and head" to some entrants,
although robots in humanoid form are not required to enter the challenge.
"For robots to be useful to [the U.S. Department of Defense], they need to
offer gains in either physical protection or productivity," notes DARPA's
Kaigham Gabriel.  DARPA's announcement says the "proposed research should
investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in
science, devices, or systems."  The challenge will take place in two phases
and will finish at the end of 2014.
http://www.informationweek.com/news/government/info-management/232900054

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