DARPA Announces Robotics Challenge Finalists
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has released a list of 25 teams to perform in the finals of the DARPA Robotics Challenge to be held June 5-6, 2015, at Fairplex in Pomona, California, outside of Los Angeles. Human-robot teams will be tested on capabilities that could enable them to provide assistance in future natural and man-made disasters.
Fourteen new teams from Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, the People’s Republic of China, South Korea and the United States qualified to join 11 previously announced teams. The roboteams will vie for a chance to win one of three cash prizes totaling $3.5 million.
To qualify for the finals, the new teams had to submit videos showing successful completion of five sample tasks: engage an emergency shut-off switch get up from a prone position locomote 10 meters without falling; pass over a barrier; and rotate a circular valve 360 degrees.
The qualifying teams are:
Germany
Team Hector
Lead Organization: Technische Universität Darmstadt
Location: Darmstadt, Germany
Robot Name: THORMANG
Website: http://www.tu-darmstadt.de/index.en.jsp
Team NimbRo Rescue
Lead Organization: University of Bonn
Location: Bonn, Germany
Robot Name: Momaro
Website: http://www.ais.uni-bonn.de/nimbro/Rescue
Hong Kong
Team HKU
Lead Organizations: Hong Kong University, Case Western Reserve University
Location: Hong Kong, Cleveland
Robot Name: Atlas
Website: http://engg.hku.hk/home/robotics/index.htm
Italy
Team Walk-Man
Lead Organizations: Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, University of Pisa
Locations: Genoa and Pisa, Italy
Robot Name: WALK-MAN
Website: www.walk-man.eu
Japan
Team Aero
Lead Organization: University of Tokyo
Location: Tokyo
Robot Name: N/A (Custom)
Website: http://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/
Team AIST-NEDO
Lead Organization: National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology
Location: Tokyo
Robot Name: HRP2+
Website: http://www.aist.go.jp/index_en.html
Team HRP2-Tokyo
Lead Organization: University of Tokyo
Location: Tokyo
Robot Name: HRP2
Website: http://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/
Team NEDO-Hydra
Lead Organization: University of Tokyo
Location: Tokyo
Robot Name: N/A (Custom)
Website: http://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/
Team NEDO-JSK
Lead Organization: University of Tokyo, Chiba Institute of Technology, Osaka
University, Kobe University
Location: Tokyo, Chiba, Osaka and Kobe, Japan
Robot Name: N/A
Website: http://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/
People’s Republic of China
Team Intelligent Pioneer
Lead Organization: Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Location: Changzhou, China
Robot Name: IP-2
Website: http://www.iamt.cas.cn/
South Korea
Team KAIST
Lead Organization: Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
Location: Daejeon, South Korea
Robot Name: DRC-HUBO
Website: www.kaist.edu
Team ROBOTIS
Lead Organization: ROBOTIS
Location: Seoul
Robot Name: THORMANG 2
Website: http://www.robotis.com
Team SNU
Lead Organization: Seoul National University
Location: Seoul
Robot Name: THORMANG
Websites: http://dyros.snu.ac.kr, http://mipal.snu.ac.kr, http://www.simlab.co.kr
United States
Tartan Rescue
Lead Organization: Carnegie Mellon University, National Robotics Engineering Center
Location: Pittsburgh
Robot Name: CHIMP
Website: http://www.tartanrescue.org/
Team DRC-Hubo
Lead Organization: University of Las Vegas
Location: Las Vegas
Robot Name: DRC-Hubo
Website: http://www.drc-hubo.com
Team Grit
Lead Organizations: Grit Robotics, Colorado Mesa University, AutonomouStuff LLC,
Harbrick
Location: Grand Junction, Colorado; Morton, Illinois; Moscow, Idaho
Robot Name: Cog-Burn
Website: http://www.gritrobotics.co/
Team IHMC Robotics
Lead Organization: Florida Institute for Human & Machine Cognition
Location: Pensacola, Florida
Robot Name: Ian (Atlas)
Website: http://robots.ihmc.us/drc/
Team MIT
Lead Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts
Robot Name: Helios (Atlas)
Website: http://drc.mit.edu/
Team RoboSimian
Lead Organization: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Location: Pasadena, California
Robot Name: RoboSimian
Website: http://www.robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/tasks/showTask.cfm?TaskID=236&tdaID=700043
Team THOR.
Lead Organizations: University of California-Los Angeles, University of Pennsylvania
Location: Los Angeles, Philadelphia
Robot Name: THOR-OP
Website: http://www.romela.org/main/Robotics_and_Mechanisms_Laboratory
Team TRACLabs
Lead Organization: TRACLabs Inc.
Location: Webster, Texas
Robot Name: Hercules (Atlas)
Website: http://traclabs.com
Team Trooper
Lead Organization: Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratories
Location: Cherry Hill, New Jersey
Robot Name: Atlas
Website: http://lockheedmartin.com/us/what-we-do/emerging/robotics.html