A team of flying and walking robots has claimed a $2 million prize for successfully exploring an underground complex as part of a .
DARPA regularly holds contests to encourage fledgling technologies, most notably with self-driving cars 鈥� several teams who entered a DARPA challenge in 2005 went on to start companies in the industry.
This latest event, which took place at the Louisville Mega Cavern in Kentucky last month, tasked robots with searching for specific items in a simulation of an underground rescue operation, including a dummy in a reflective vest representing an accident survivor, a backpack and a cell phone.
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The robots had to be able to operate in environments that are too dangerous for human rescuers, with risks like fire, smoke, toxic gas and unstable structures. Being underground limits communications, so search robots needed to be highly autonomous.
The winning team used a mixture of ANYmal quadruped robots and flying drones to map out the space and locate 23 of the 40 items, beating seven other competitors.
鈥淟egged robots offer endurance but simultaneously highly capable locomotion to negotiate difficult terrain and stairs,鈥� says Cerberus team leader at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. 鈥淔lying robots are needed when high vantage points or fast exploration are required. Thus the combination covers all needs.鈥�
Alexis says the Cerberus team used guided autonomy, in which a human operator juggles several robots, sending each out to a particular area. Once instructed, a robot autonomously explores as much of the specified area as possible in the given time before returning to communication range.
The core technology behind the robots is mature enough to use for mine inspection and search and rescue operations, says Alexis. It might be also adapted for use in space exploration 鈥� for example, exploring caves and lava tubes on the moon.
ANYmal is already being commercialised and DARPA hopes that other systems from challenge team members will follow the same route, attracting government or private funding to move the technology ahead, as happened with self-driving cars.
