DARPA Robotics Challenge

A 2012–2015 US DARPA competition for disaster-response humanoid robots.

The DARPA Robotics Challenge was launched by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident, starting in 2012, requiring robots to complete eight tasks simulating a disaster site: driving and exiting a vehicle, opening a door, turning a valve, cutting a hole in a wall with a drill, and crossing rubble and climbing stairs, among others. DARPA funded Boston Dynamics to build several hydraulic Atlas units, which some teams were given to compete with. The final, held in June 2015 in Pomona, California, saw 25 teams compete for a $3.5 million prize; South Korea's KAIST won with DRC-HUBO, followed by IHMC in second place and Carnegie Mellon University's Tartan Rescue in third. The robots moved slowly and fell frequently during the finals, exposing that era's limits in perception, balance, and autonomy, and the event trained a generation of researchers who went on to shape later humanoid robotics.

ExampleFootage of multiple robots falling while exiting vehicles or opening doors during the finals was widely circulated as compilation clips.

Also called

DRC

Related

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency · Boston Dynamics Atlas (Hydraulic) · Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition · Humanoid Robot · Special-purpose Robot

Sources

DARPA Robotics Challenge - Wikipedia