DRC-HUBO Humanoid Robot Wins the DARPA Robotics Challenge

This past Saturday the team from South Korea which designed, built and programmed their humanoid robot DRC-HUBO took home the $2 million dollar first-place prize as part of the 2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge. The focus of this year's challenge was to create a robot which could complete a variety of tasks primarily related to disaster response. The designs are almost entirely humanoid, which makes sense when looking at the various challenges they need to complete. The technology which comes out of the competition has the potential to rapidly develop the field of robotics.

First place went to DARPA Team Kaist Humanoid Robot

Challenge / Task Details Drive a utility vehicle at the site. Travel dismounted across rubble. Remove debris blocking an entryway. Open a door and enter a building. Climb an industrial ladder and traverse an industrial walkway. Use a tool to break through a concrete panel. Locate and close a valve near a leaking pipe. Connect a fire hose to a standpipe and turn on a valve.

The competition shows off the cutting-edge of autonomous humanoid robot development and entries were from top robotics universities, research labs, government organizations and companies. Take a look at the 2015 finals:

Here are the results for the 2015 DARPA Robotics Challenge. The score represents how many tasks (total of 8 listed above) which the robot was able to complete, and the overall time. Therefore the more tasks a robot could complete the better, and robots which could complete all 8 tasks were ranked according to their overall time.

DARPA Tartan Rescue	DARPA Team Aero	DARPA AIST-NEDO	DARPA DRC-Hubo	DARPA Team Grit
Score: 8 Time: 55:15	Score: 0 Time: 00:00	Score: 5 Time: 52:30	Score: 6 Time: 57:41	Score: 0 Time: 00:00
DARPA Team Hector	DARPA Team HKU	DARPA HRP2-Tokyo	DARPA Team IHMC	DARPA Team I.P.
Score: 1 Time: 02:44	Score: 0 Time: 00:00	Score: 3 Time: 30:06	Score: 8 Time: 50:26	Score: N/A Time: N/A
DARPA Team KAIST	DARPA Team MIT	DARPA Team HYDRA	DARPA Team JSK	DARPA Team NimbRo
Score: 8 Time: 44:28	Score: 7 Time: 50:25	Score: N/A Time: N/A	Score: 4 Time: 58:39	Score: 7 Time: 34:00
DARPA RoboSimian	DARPA Team ROBOTIS	DARPA Team SNU	DARPA Team THOR	DARPA TRAC Labs
Score: 7 Time: 47:59	Score: 3 Time: 30:23	Score: 4 Time: 59:33	Score: 3 Time: 27:47	Score: 5 Time: 49:00
DARPA Team TROOPER	DARPA Team VALOR	DARPA Team ViGIR	DARPA Team WALK-MAN	DARPA Team WPI-CMU
Score: 2 Time: 42:32	Score: 0 Time: 00:00	Score: 3 Time: 48:49	Score: 2 Time: 36:35	Score: 7 Time: 56:06

  Feeling inspired to build and/or program a humanoid robot but don't have hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of dollars to spend? RobotShop offers a variety of different humanoid robots to get you started. Many are available as either unassembled kits which you put together or fully assembled, tested and ready to run. We have also separated the robots into rough suggested levels: beginner (no understanding of robotics needed); intermediate (easy to follow assembly, graphical pr text-based programming); advanced (previous knowledge of robotics is highly suggested and may require higher-level programming). Clicking on the image will take you to the product page. Don't want to restrict yourself to just two legs? We have quadruped and hexapod robots too!

Darwin Humanoid	Kumotek KT-X PC	Kumotek Gladiator Pro	Manoi PF01	Bioloid Grand Prix
Assembled / Kit Advanced	Assembled Advanced	Assembled Advanced	Assembled / Kit Advanced	Assembled Advanced
Manoi AT01	Kumotek Gladiator	Kondo KHR-3HV	Hovis Eco Plus	Bioloid Premium
Assembled Advanced	Assembled / Kit Advanced	Kit Intermediate	Kit Intermediate	Kit Intermediate
RoboPhilo	UXA-90	Lynxmotion Scout	Hovis Genie	HOVIS Lite
Assembled / Kit Beginner	Assembled Advanced	Kit Advanced	Assembled / Kit Intermediate	Kit Intermediate
RoboPhilo Junior	RQ-HUNO	EZ-Robot	Lynxmotion BRAT	Lynxmotion Pete
Assembled / Kit Beginner	Assembled / Kit Beginner	Kit Beginner	Kit Intermediate	Kit Advanced

  Congratulations goes out to all teams and special thanks to DARPA for organizing such an amazing competition. More information about each team, as well as the rules and results of the competition can be found on the official DARPA Robotics Challenge website.