The US and Australian defense departments have selected six teams spanning four different continents to take the trip Down Under to compete in the first ever Multi Autonomous Ground-Robotic International Challenge (MAGIC) 2010. A competition, similar to DARPA’s Urban Challenge, is being held this year in Adelaide, South Australia from 8-13 November.
The six teams are Cappadocia (Ankara, Turkey), Chiba (Tokyo, Japan), Magician (Perth, Australia) and US teams RASR (Gaithersburg, Maryland), Team Michigan (Ann Arbor, Michigan) and the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia).
“All the judges were impressed with the magnitude of submissions from the teams,” says Grace Bochenek, director of the US Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center, who announced the finalists. “These finalists have survived a rigorous assessment and elimination process against six other semi-finalist teams.”
The final six teams were whittled down from 12 semifinalists - 23 teams from five countries submitted entries to the competition. To select the finalists, Australian and US officials evaluated teams on their ability to perform certain tasks while operating autonomously and mapping the robots' location digitally. The aim of the competition is to develop teams of robots that can operate autonomously on the battlefield in situations too dangerous for soldiers.
“We are excited to work with the Australian government on this international collaboration,” says Bochenek. “MAGIC 2010 will go a long way to help foster the growth of the next generation of scientists and engineers both in the United States and abroad.”
Source: FlightGlobal.com