New DARPA Challenge: Make a Robot Action Hero

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military, issued a new challenge to all roboticists of the world to create a new generation of Rescue robot. The winners could get a 2M$ reward. This challenge goes beyond the current state of the art in robotics and will require the development of very advanced systems. The participating robots should be able to do the following tasks:

• Enter, exit and drive a standard heavy-duty vehicle (i.e. a truck)
• Travel through rough terrain covered by debris.
• Use power tools to knock down a wall
• Navigate trough an industrial environment
• Close a valve
• Replace parts of a pump

Although this set of requirements seems best suited for an action movie, the main goal is to create robots that can be used in disaster situations similar to the Fukushima nuclear incident. The video summarizes the challenge. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daaGhpOJAIc