| ABC News | - |
Japan
didn't wait until the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympic Games to show the world
that it had its eyes set on Olympic gold. Schaft Inc., a Japanese
company, won the prestigious DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) Trials this
weekend, beating out 15 other ...
Team from Japan Clinches Gold at the Robot Olympics
Japan didn't wait until the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympic Games to show the world that it had its eyes set on Olympic gold.
Schaft Inc., a Japanese company, won the prestigious DARPA Robotics
Challenge (DRC) Trials this weekend, beating out 15 other humanoid
robots at the Homestead-Miami speedway.
The two-day trials put the robots through a series of eight events that
simulate the type of tasks a robot would need to perform in a disaster
scenario. Each event had three objectives, a point each, and teams could
earn an additional bonus point if their robots could perform the task
without any intervention from humans. Schaft earned 27 points, while the
second-place team IHMC Robotics earned 20.
Five of the tasks were variations of getting from point A to point B,
including climbing a ladder, walking across rocky terrain, opening
doors, removing debris blocking their path, and even driving a car
through a mini obstacle course. The remaining three events were hands-on
tasks: turning valves, unrolling a hose, and cutting out a triangle in a
piece of drywall with a cordless drill.
Tony Stentz, the leader of the third-place team Tartan Rescue, said that
overall he was impressed with how all the competitors performed at the
trials. "On average, they did a lot better than I thought they would,"
he told ABC News today.
The eight top-scoring teams at the DRC Trials all received $1 million
each from DARPA to improve their robots for the DRC finals, which will
take place next year around the same time of year. But instead of an
octathalon-like event, the robots will be expected to perform each task
in succession. "I think you're going to see teams work on improving
their speed," said Stentz. "They're going to work on making these robots
even more autonomous and less reliant on their operators."
But the Schaft Inc. team might have a significant leg up on their competitors for the upcoming finals. The company was acquired by Google earlier this year. In light of Google's recent purchase of Boston Dynamics, both Schaft's and Google's future in robotics is looking very bright.
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