Jane Edwards
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announces the top five performing teams that competed in a DARPA challenge, which evaluated the capability of software-based tools to detect artifacts in simulated tunnel environments.
The agency said Wednesday eight self-funded and DARPA-backed teams developed and tested software for their set of robots and sensors designed to explore tunnels in simulated environments as part of the Subterranean Challenge Virtual Tunnel Circuit event.
Coordinated Robotics, a self-funded team, landed the top spot and secured $250K in prizes, followed by Bayesian Adaptive Robot Control System at the second place.
SODIUM-24 Robotics, another self-funded team, won a $150K prize and took the third place. Self-funded Robotica and DARPA-funded Communication Optimized, Low Latency Exploration, Map-Building and Object Localization Autonomy ranked fourth and fifth in the competition.
"The Virtual Tunnel Circuit challenged teams to develop an even greater understanding of how autonomous systems will work with zero human intervention, i.e., no human supervisor, available to redirect or adjust course," said Timothy Chung, DARPA program manager for the Subterranean Challenge. "The Virtual courses, just like the Systems courses, intentionally mimic the unpredictability and diverse terrain that service members and first responders could encounter in unknown, underground environments."
DARPA will hold the Urban Circuit Systems and Virtual competitions in February 2020, the Cave Circuit by August 2020 and the final event by August 2021.
