Robotic challengeThe DARPA Robotics Challenge begins

Conceptual rendering of DARPA's robotics competition // Source: darpa.mil

Robot enthusiasts, the time has come. The DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) began yesterday. DARPA wants to know whether you will be part of it.

Over the next two years, teams will compete to develop and put to the test hardware and software designed to enable robots to assist humans in emergency response when a disaster strikes. Based on proposals submitted in response to a Broad Agency Announcement, DARPA has selected and will provide funding for seven teams in Track A of the DRC to develop new robotic systems containing both hardware and software, and eleven teams in Track B to develop software only.

Registration is just beginning for participation in Tracks C and D (register here).

A DARPA release reports that Track C of the Challenge provides an opportunity for individuals and teams from around the world to compete without the need for hardware. Anyone with the skills to develop the software needed to advance core robotic software capabilities can register and participate using the open-source DRC Simulator. Expertise in software for robotic perception, planning, control and human-robot interface, and experience in physics-based games, models and simulation, as well as open-source code, will all be useful. Participants also need to be motivated since the first DRC event, the Virtual Robotics Challenge, is scheduled to take place only eight months from now in June 2013, and a qualifying round is planned to be held in the Simulator in May. In both rounds, Track C teams would face off against Track B performers on an equal footing.

After only one month of development, the Simulator is currently available in beta version 1.0 and will be improved throughout the coming months for DARPA by the Open Source Robotics Foundation.

Over time, it will be increasingly populated with models of robots, perception sensors and field environments, and function as a cloud-based, real-time, operator-interactive virtual test bed that uses physics-based models of inertia, actuation, contact and environment dynamics. With the cooperation of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the Simulator will be rigorously validated, meaning users can confidently leverage it as a resource to test software.

“The DRC Simulator is going to be one of DARPA’s legacies to the robotics community,” said Gill Pratt, DARPA program manager for the DRC. “One of DARPA’s goals for the Challenge is to catalyze robotics development across all fields so that we as a community end up with more