POMONA: Two dozen of the world’s most advanced robots were placed in a simulated disaster environment at the start of the Darpa Robotics Challenge. The goal of the competition is to spur technologies that can be used to respond to natural and man-made disasters.
But don’t expect such robots to be in the hands of first responders any time soon, says Gill Pratt, program manager for the Darpa Robotics Challenge, which concludes Saturday. The robots at the DRC are only prototypes, designed to show what is possible today, Pratt said Thursday at a media briefing.
“I don’t know how long it’s going to take to see the technology used in real-world situations,” Pratt said.
The Darpa Grand Challenge and Darpa Urban Challenge, held in 2005 and 2007, respectively, helped kick off interest in self-driving cars and autonomous vehicles. But only now are those technologies being commercialized by companies like Oshkosh (NYSE:OSK), Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and the major automakers, he said.
“Darpa is about high-risk, high-reward activities,” Pratt said.
At the opening ceremony for the DRC on Friday in Pomona, Calif., Arati Prabhakar, director of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, said the use of robots in dangerous situations such as crippled nuclear reactors and earthquake-damaged buildings will help save lives.
“It’s going to be a huge change,” she said.
She noted that previous efforts by Darpa and its predecessor agency led to the development of the Global Positioning System, advanced radar and the Internet.
$3.5 Million In Prizes
Robots in the DRC competition come from the U.S., as well as Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan and South Korea. Teams are competing for one of three cash prizes totaling $3.5 million.
Seven teams are using a humanoid robot called Atlas that was created by Google-owned Boston Dynamics.
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