Carnegie Mellon Robotics Team Wins Initial DARPA Event
Team explorer performs impressively at subterranean challenge's tunnel circuit. Team Explorer from Carnegie Mellon University and Oregon State University deployed robots to autonomously map and search underground mines and outscored 10 competing teams at the initial scored event in the DARPA Subterranean Challenge. On four occasions during the eight-day event, each team deployed multiple robots into National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health research mines in South Park Township, Pennsylvania, navigating on their own for an hour at a time as they searched for objects, such as simulated human survivors, in a mine disaster scenario. Team Explorer detected and pinpointed 25 of these artifacts in its two best runs, 14 more than any other team. In addition to being named champions of the event, the team also was cited for "Most Accurate Artifact," for identifying and locating a backpack inside a mine within less than 20 centimeters of its actual position. "All the teams worked very hard to get here and each took a slightly different approach to the problem," said Matt Travers, a system scientist at CMU's Robotics Institute and co-leader of Team Explorer. "This was a great experience for all of us and we are proud of the performance by our team members and our robots." The event, which concluded today in Pittsburgh, was sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
