With greater skill and finesse as the Pet-proto
You may be familiar with the US’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Petman robot, which was featured in one of our previous posts along with some other incredible humanoid robots. In coordination with Boston Dynamics once again, DARPA has recently released a new video introducing Pet-proto, a machine which is being developed as precursor to the Atlas robot whose making is in the works.
Embedded with autonomous decision capabilities, this bot can move over and around various types of obstacles. Robots such as this one will need these kinds of skills if they’re planning on competing in DARPA’s Robotics Challenge (DRC). The program officially kicked off in October of 2012 and it is scheduled to run for about 27 months that will include 3 virtual and live competitions planned for June 2013, December 2013 and December 2014.
The DRC won’t be all fun and games- its primary aim will be to foster the development machines fit to lend a hand to victims of natural or man-made diasters, executing risky tasks such as evacuation operations. DARPA notes that participants of the DRC should specifically focus on creating ground robots that are able to make use of human tools commonly applied in disaster relief situations.
Two of the four competition tracks are still open for registration. Check out the official website for more information HERE if you think your team may have what it takes!
