DARPA's Newset Robot....

[iOWNme]

Look at what the 'Good Guys' have been working on....


In this video, the Pet-Proto, a predecessor to DARPA's Atlas robot, is confronted with obstacles similar to those robots might face in the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC). To maneuver over and around the obstacles, the robot exercises capabilities including autonomous decision-making, dismounted mobility and dexterity. The DARPA Robotics Challenge will test these and other capabilities in a series of tasks that will simulate conditions in a dangerous, degraded, human-engineered environment. Teams participating in Tracks B and C of the DRC will compete for access to a modified version of the Atlas robot for use in the 2013 and 2014 live disaster-response challenge events. For more information on the DRC, please see: http://go.usa.gov/VfA.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFGfq0pRczY


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqCmX5dMYHg

[k-os]

I thought they'd be further along than this by now. And the only reason the robot "mastered" the stairs is because some dude is pulling a cord, lifting him up.

[Dogman]

I thought they'd be further along than this by now. And the only reason the robot "mastered" the stairs is because some dude is pulling a cord, lifting him up. No, more like to keep that investment of thousands of dollars from falling. If you look closely you will see that he is not lifting, just taking slack out of the line to keep the robot from falling and damaging itself.

[Neuro]

It looks a bit gay!

[iOWNme]

Notice how this is all done in the name of 'Natural and MAN MADE disasters'.

These robots ARE HERE TO HELP YOU. Dont mind its weapons systems and it inability to reason.




The DARPA Robotics Challenge (http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/TTO/Programs/DARPA_Robotics_Challenge.aspx)




The Department of Defense’s strategic plan calls for the Joint Force to conduct humanitarian, disaster relief and related operations. The plan identifies requirements to extend aid to victims of natural or man-made disasters and conduct evacuation operations. Some disasters, however, due to grave risks to the health and wellbeing of rescue and aid workers, prove too great in scale or scope for timely and effective human response. The DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) will attempt to address this capability gap by promoting innovation in robotic technology for disaster-response operations.
The primary technical goal of the DRC is to develop ground robots capable of executing complex tasks in dangerous, degraded, human-engineered environments. Competitors in the DRC are expected to focus on robots that can use standard tools and equipment commonly available in human environments, ranging from hand tools to vehicles, with an emphasis on adaptability to tools with diverse specifications.
To achieve its goal, the DRC aims to advance the current state of the art in the enabling technologies of supervised autonomy in perception and decision-making, mounted and dismounted mobility, dexterity, strength, and platform endurance. Success with supervised autonomy, in particular, could allow control of robots by non-expert operators, lower the operator’s workload, and allow effective operation even with low-fidelity (low bandwidth, high latency, intermittent) communications.
The DRC consists of both robotics hardware and software development tasks and is structured to increase the diversity of innovative solutions by encouraging participation from around the world, including universities, small, medium and large businesses, and even individuals and groups with ideas on how to advance the field of robotics. Detailed descriptions of the participant tracks are available in the DRC Broad Agency Announcement (http://gold-silver.us/External_Link.aspx?url=http://go.usa.gov/mVj).
A secondary goal of the DRC is to make software and hardware development for ground-robot systems more accessible to interested contributors, thereby lowering the cost of acquisition while increasing capabilities. DARPA seeks to accomplish this by creating and providing government-furnished equipment (GFE) to some DRC participants in the form of a robotic hardware platform with arms, legs, torso and head. Availability of this platform will allow teams without hardware expertise or hardware to participate. Additionally, all teams will have access to a government-furnished simulator created by DARPA and populated with models of robots, robot components and field environments. The simulator will be an open-source, real-time, operator-interactive virtual test bed, and the accuracy of the models used in it will be rigorously validated on a physical test bed. DARPA hopes the creation of a widely available, validated, affordable, and community supported and enhanced virtual test environment will play a catalytic role in development of robotics technology, allowing new hardware and software designs to be evaluated without the need for physical prototyping.
The DRC Broad Agency Announcement was released on April 10, 2012.
The DRC kicked off on October 24, 2012, and is scheduled to run for approximately 27 months with three planned competitions, one virtual followed by two live. Events are planned for June 2013, December 2013 and December 2014.

More here:

http://www.theroboticschallenge.org/



Natural and man-made disasters have caused suffering for people around the world, in past ages, today, and surely tomorrow. The devastation of disasters such as Fukushima, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the Chilean Copiapó mine collapse all serve to highlight our fragility in the presence of unforeseen events. Often, subject matter experts are available with the knowledge to prevent further damage, yet are unable to get close enough to complete their mission – be it from nuclear contamination, intense pressure, structural instability, or many other threats to human safety. Our best robotic tools 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. Even in degraded post-disaster situations, the environment is scaled to the human world, requiring navigation of human obstacles such as doors and stairs, manipulation of human objects such as vehicles and power tools, and recognition of common human objects such as levers and valves.