The team have broken down their robots and bundle them upin crates and suitcases , load them into trucks and taken them on airplanesand gone home . Some will lick their wound and reconstruct to crusade another Clarence Shepard Day Jr. . The lucky ones will get a million dollars each from DARPA to continuedeveloping their bots .
TheDARPA Robotics Challengetrials , or DRC , endedyesterday . The 16 teams and their bots pushed , trip up , drove , strutted andclambered their way through 8 cataclysm recovery - touch challenge put to themby the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency , orDARPA , the Pentagon ’s madscience arm , over the course of the last two day .
“ This has been an extraordinary event that has exceededmy expected value by multiple , multiple sentence , ” said Gill Pratt , the DARPAprogram coach in charge of the DRC , during a closure observance . “ I’vebeen saying to the medium for quite some time that I would bethrilled — thrilled — if even one of the teams scored one-half of the points in the DRCtrials . Well , it turns out that 4 scored over half the number of points . ”
TeamSCHAFT , which got started at Tokyo University andbecame a private fellowship , ruled the subject , garnering near in task awards inhalf of the challenge : the walking on uneven terrain challenge ; theladder - climbing challenge ; junk clearing ; and the hosiery - connecting challenge .
Team leader Yuto Nakanishi focused intently on his bot , a5 - foot , 5 - inch , 209 - punt downhearted biped machine , as it moved with weird gracethrough the challenges . Nakanishi was the very picture of cool and collecteduntil the machine discharge a give task with nary a trip , at which item hepumped his fists and let rip a triumph outcry .
SCHAFT ruled the Challenge , but now Google reign SCHAFT . The Internet search troupe sustain a workweek before the DRC trail that it had bought the squad along with Boston Dynamics , the company that built the Atlas robots with which 7 of the teams vie .
https://gizmodo.com/a-closer-look-at-googles-new-robot-army-1483302945
A Boston Dynamics team member told me that Google seemsintent on letting his party continue doing its affair : construction robotsinspired by animals , including us puny world . Boston Dynamics ’ biggestcustomer has been DARPA . Whether or not that will change is anyone ’s guessright now .
Bottom pic courtesy ofDARPA
One somebody who might be just as happy not to have thePentagon in mission of the most capable oecumenical function android robots in theworld isMark Gubrudof the International Committee for Robot Arms Control .
Gubrud buttonhole me between upshot to put the fear of Godinto me about the possible future tense of these machines . “ distinctly there’sinterest in robot soldiers . That ’s clearly the long - terminus finish here , as well asrobots to do other muted , foul , and life-threatening jobs , ” Gruber explicate to Gizmodo . Hisgroup seeks aninternational forbidding on death - dealing autonomous robot . “ I think there ’s an intuitive signified ofhorror at it , that it ’s an offence to human dignity for a human being to bekilled on the decision of a machine — it is a human province tomaintain ascendancy of the use of force-out . ”
But death was far from most people ’s mind as the Challengeclosed .
“ This entire workweek was an super safe enterprise , ” saidBrad Tousley , DARPA ’s Tactical Technology Office director in a post - event pressbriefing . “ You had 16 robots with a with child turn of free specters , a largenumber of competitors , a large number of governance sept working in it . Therewasn’t a single problem all week with any refuge return , nor was there an issuewith any person getting injured or having a trouble . ”
TeamSCHAFTcrowded the outside stage during the closingceremonies last night to accept first - post honors . SCHAFT was the clear winnerwith 27 total points in the event .
TeamIHMC Robotics , from Pensacola , Florida and driving aBoston Dynamics Atlas robot , came in 2d place with 20 points .
Carnegie Mellon University ’s team , Tartan Rescue , involve thirdplace with 18 points .
TeamMITwas next , with 16 point .
NASA JPL ’s RoboSimiantook fifth place with 14 full point .
TRACLabsand the Worcester Polytechnic team , WRECS , tied forsixth place with 11 points each , while the Lockheed Martin - funded team , TROOPER , came last of the top finisher with 9 points .
Alas , theDIY team Mojavaton — mentioned inmost recent post — didn’t account any point . But , then , neither did the big - budget NASA JSC team , Valkyrie . In all likelihood , both will be back next yr for the DARPA RoboticsChallenge Finals .
https://gizmodo.com/bot-cameras-lidar-eyes-and-the-driverless-racetrack-o-1487811037
All 8 of the top - finishing teams are eligible to obtain acool million buck in support from DARPA to go along honing their robotsleading up to next year ’s Finals . They will more than likely put most oftheir effort into meliorate the software for control the machines andrefining the code that allows them to do their tasks with supervisedautonomy .
DARPA ’s deputy managing director , Steven Walker , told me that he’ssure next year the bots will zip around at much faster speeds than theshuffling movements of this year ’s bot . The SCHAFT automaton offer a coup d’oeil ofwhat ’s to come . Instead of move one slow , halting step at a metre , thatmachine practically hopped over the harsh terrain class , high - step it likean ostrich with trusted , seemingly confident strides . It all but ricochet up thestairs in the ravel challenge , moving without waver up two steps at atime .
unluckily , we ’ll have to wait an entire year to find out — but stay tune for Gizmodo ’s insurance coverage of theDARPA Robotics Challenge Finalsin December 2014 .
Michael Belfioreis the author ofThe Department of Mad scientist : How DARPA Is make over Our World , from the Internet to Artificial Limbs .
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