Fwd: [euron-dist] Call for participation: DARPA Robotics Grand Challenge

[Nizar Rokbani]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Davide Faconti <fac...@icarustechnology.com>
Date: 16 April 2012 21:32
Subject: [euron-dist] Call for participation: DARPA Robotics Grand Challenge
To: euron...@iais.fraunhofer.de

More information about this call for participation can be found at: http://grandchallenge.wpengine.com/ 

The DARPA Grand Challenge

A few days ago, on April 10th, DARPA announced a new Robotics Grand Challenge. From the official press release:

DARPA plans to offer a $2 million prize to whomever can help push the state-of-the-art in robotics beyond today’s capabilities. Teams are sought to compete in challenges involving staged disaster-response scenarios in which robots will have to successfully navigate a series of physical tasks corresponding to anticipated, real-world disaster-response requirements.

The robot should be able to:

·        Drive a utility vehicle to the site

·        Travel dismounted across rubble

·        Remove debris blocking an entryway

·        Open a door and enter a building

·        Climb an industrial ladder and traverse an industrial walkway

·        Use a tool to break through a concrete panel

·        Locate and close a valve near a leaking pipe

·        Replace a cooling pump

All of these tasks must be performed by a semi-autonomous robot. The robot will be operated under supervised autonomy to allow its control by non-expert operators, reduce operator workload, and allow effective operation even with low-fidelity (low-bandwidth/high-latency/intermittent) communications. 

A call to action

We consider the DARPA Grand Challenge one of the most exciting things that happened in robotics in the last years for several reasons:

1. It aims to the creation of technologies which will push forward the state-of-the-art in many fields of robotics, including perception, locomotion and manipulation.

2. It focuses researchers toward real-world applications. We consider disaster recovery a remarkable and potentially life-saving use for robots, considering the recent disaster in Fukushima.

3. It is extremely challenging to make so much work in terms of development, design and integration in such a little amount of time. This will be a unique, life-changing opportunity to do something extraordinary!

“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.” -  Christopher Reeve

We want to create a European team to compete in this exciting DARPA Grand Challenge. Our goal is to compete for first place as a team in Track A, developing both the hardware and software of the robotic platform.

To achieve this objective, we need the participation of people with genuine expertise in the field of robotics, people with motivation, people crazy enough to believe that the nearly impossible can be done. We will make it possible through hard work and collaboration.

We want to bring the most brilliant minds in Europe under the same roof. We don’t want to create just a consortium of academic or industrial partners: we want to focus on the individuals. Those individuals may ultimately come from an institution or be directly employed by one of our partners, but from a practical viewpoint, there will be no difference: team members will be accepted based on their individual skills, achievements, talent, and motivation. The reputation of the institution where they come from is secondary to us.

A lab, or two labs if necessary, will be created to make it possible for our researchers to work together, free of any distraction or friction.

 

If you are interested in participating in the DARPA Grand Challenge, or if you just have questions, please contact us at fac...@icarustechnology.com

Who can join?

Anyone that can contribute to one or more fields of research that are relevant to this project: hardware design, legged locomotion, electronics, manipulation, remote control, etc.

Considering the limited time to achieve the first milestone (nine months to design the entire robot, six more months to build it and run the first Disaster Response Challenge), only experienced researchers with proven skills will be accepted.

We welcome academic partners in this initiative, but keep in mind that this project aims to get results. Our goal in this competition is to win, and to advance the field of robotics in the process. Publications and other overhead will be avoided as much as possible.

We want the developers/researchers to work together to do their best as a team. For this reason, we want to avoid the model of the classical consortium, where decisions are taken from multiple coordinators and consensus takes a long time to achieve. We want smart, proactive, "manager of one", type individuals who can function both autonomously and as part of a group.

About funding

We want to make a proposal to be funded by DARPA. The budget is up to $3 million for the first 15 months of the project and up to $1 million for the following 12 months.

Nevertheless, we don’t look at this budget as a funding opportunity to do basic research; instead, we want to use every cent we receive to compete and be the best team. 

We are looking for people who think like us. If you are planning to join us just to get "a piece of the pie," please consider talking to someone else.

We plan to use the budget to pay labor costs for the people involved full-time. Salary will be as fair as possible, considering our limited resources.

An open initiative

At the end of the project, we are planning to make all the hardware and software deliverables open source.

This means that, whatever the results of the competition, the entire community of robotics will benefit from our effort. We believe that this can represent an important milestone and an amazing opportunity to improve the current state-of-the-art.

Contact us

If you have even the slightest interest in participating in the DARPA Grand Challenge, please contact us to discuss if we can collaborate.

For more information, visit our website: http://grandchallenge.wpengine.com/ 

Davide Faconti 

telephone: +34666722156

skype: davide.faconti

email: fac...@icarustechnology.com

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