WPI Team Places 2nd in DARPA Robotics Competition
Saturday, June 29, 2013
The simulated Atlas robot tackles a difficult task in the Virtual Robotics Challenge
A team of WPI robotics engineers led by PhD candidate R. J. Linton is among seven winners in the Virtual Robotics Challenge (VRC) sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The competition is part of DARPA's Robotics Challenge (DRC), which aims to create a new generation of advanced humanoid robots capable of responding to natural and manmade disasters, doing jobs too hazardous for humans.
The WPI team placed second among the 26 teams that qualified for the virtual challenge, which ran from June 17-27. The VRC required teams to develop software that enables a simulated humanoid robot to autonomously complete three difficult challenges: driving a vehicle, walking across progressively more difficult terrain, and attaching a hose connector to a spigot and turning a valve.
The WPI team received no DARPA funding, but used DARPA-supplied simulation software, as did the teams that used DARPA funding. Each of the winning teams will receive a million-dollar Atlas humanoid robot developed for DARPA by Boston Dynamics, as well as funding to enable them to compete in the next phase of the DRC, in which teams will program actual humanoid robots to complete a sequence of events required to address a simulated disaster.
"This was a wonderful effort by a diverse team," said WPI Provost Eric Overström. "WPI was the first university in the nation to offer a BS program in robotics engineering, and the first to BS, MS, and PhD programs in this important and emerging field. It’s an honor to be given the opportunity by DARPA to compete, and to further technological advances that will benefit humankind."
"The WPI Team is thrilled to have scored so well in the DARPA Virtual Robotics Challenge," said Michael Gennert, professor of computer science and director of WPI's Robotics Engineering Program. "There were many highly qualified teams competing, and this shows that our multidisciplinary approach to robotics really works. The DARPA VRC is an important event for robotics as we develop more capable and more autonomous devices that can go where humans can't—for example, disaster sites. Now the real work begins—moving our software from simulation onto a physical robot and dealing with the complexities of the real world."
DARPA
The Robotics Challenge was created by DARPA to accelerate the development of advanced robots that can help respond to disasters like the Fukushima reactor accident in Japan. Such robots would do dangerous jobs and operate in places where people cannot safely work. They would need to work in environments and use tools made for people, drive vehicles that have not been modified, and negotiate rubble and other hazards associated with degraded environments.
In addition to Linton, WPI's VRC team (the WPI Robotics Engineering C Squad), consists of Oke Nnasia, graduate students in robotics engineering at WPI; Jonathan Vo, an MBA student at WPI; Perry Franklin '16, a double major in robotics engineering and computer science; WPI faculty members Taskin Padir, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and robotics engineering, Gregory Fischer, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and Michael Gennert, Doug Conn and Kevin Knoedler, software professionals in California; Alison Kristoff, a software professional in Massachusetts; Mario Arbula Saavedra, a faculty member at the Universidad del La Sabana in Columbia; and Vincent Mancera Hernandez, a student at the Universidad del La Sabana.
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