TECHNOLOGY FOR CHANGE

Top 10 Terminator Robots Compete for $1.1 Million in DoD Contest

R. Colin Johnson | Date: 12-23-09 | Comments

A Department of Defense contest aims to develop smarter "terminator-like" robotic teams that can cooperate to autonomously execute military missions in high-risk environments.

Terminator-like robots will define the future of warfare, according to the U.S. and Australian Defense Departments, which are aiming to hasten the process with the Multi-Autonomous Ground-robotic International Challenge. MAGIC 2010 encourages engineering teams to design a robotic "hit squad" to cooperatively coordinate, plan and execute missions that "neutralize" both stationary and mobile enemy "objects of interest" while simultaneously providing unified situational awareness to human operators.

To win a share of the $1.1 million purse, at least three unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) on a robotic hit squad must autonomously coordinate the exploration and mapping of a simulated urban battlefield, as well as detect, locate, classify, recognize, track and neutralize all enemies (without harming friendlies).

"Our robots need to cooperate in capturing enemy objects of interest," said professor Dennis Hong, a member of Virginia Tech's team and director of its Robotics and Mechanisms Lab (RoMeLa). "For instance, if we find a mobile object of interest, which for the test will be a robotic vehicle, then our robots need to neutralize it--which is basically the same as killing it."

The robotic hit squad must cooperate on each kill, with one squad member jamming enemy radio signals, another detecting and differentiating enemy targets from friendly non-targets, and the third painting the target with an infrared laser of the type used by smart munitions for air strikes. Targets located indoors only need to be surrounded, whereupon the enemy freezes as if killed.

The robots cannot exceed the dimensions of a human-sized terminator--less than .9 meters (35 inches) wide and less that 2 meters high (6-1/2 feet) tall--but must be very lightweight for their size, less than 40 kg (88 pounds). Global Positioning Systems (GPS) can be used outside, but inside buildings the robots must be able to navigate using feature recognition and dead reckoning to find the enemies, terminate them and get out of the building to continue the quest.

The 10 finalist teams were selected from a field of 23, each of which received $50,000 in seed funding that they will use to design their robotic hit squad. Then in June 2010, the contestant field will be narrowed down to five finalists, each of which will receive a second $50,000 infusion of funding to prepare for the live search-and-destroy contest to be held in a mock urban environment one week before the Land Warfare Conference 2010 (Nov. 15-19, 2010, Brisbane, Australia). Prizes will include $750,000, $250,000 and $100,000 for the top three teams, plus the potential of receiving lucrative DoD contracts to build real robots for the military.

The 10 competing teams include five U.S. teams: Cornell University; Robotics Research, LLC (with General Dynamics Robotic Systems, Qinetic-NA, Del Services, Cedar Creek Defense University, Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and the University of Michigan); Soar Technology (with the University of Michigan); University Of Pennsylvania (with BAE Systems); and Virginia Tech. Australia is fielding two teams, Strategic Pty Ltd. (with the University of Adelaide) and the Magician team (University of Western Australia, Flinders University, Edith Cowan University, Thales Australia and Illiarc Pty Ltd.) Japan is fielding one team from Chiba University (with Analytical Software Inc.) And Turkey is sponsoring one team from Aselsan Inc. (with Bilkent University, Bogazici University, Middle East Technical University, and Ohio State University). Also two self-funded teams will be allowed to compete for the five finalist positions to be awarded in June 2010, Comprising Numinence Pty Ltd (with LaTrobe University) and the University of New South Wales (with Kumamoto University and the University of Western Sydney).