| Can humanoid robots save lives? Will they have the capacity to be our friends? Dennis Hong, founding director of Virginia Tech's Robotics & Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa), is making this happen by teaching robots how to win at soccer and by entering the DARPA Robotics Challenge. |
RoMeLa is a facility for graduate and undergraduate robotics research and education with an emphasis on studying novel mobile robot locomotion strategies. The research focus of the lab are in the area of Robot Locomotion and Manipulation, Kinematics and Mechanisms, and Autonomous Systems.
In the presentation, Hong also introduces RoMeLa's entry into the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC), with their robot T.H.O.R. (Tactical Hazardous Operations Robot). Using their ample experience in soccer-playing robots and humanoid robots, the RoMeLa team should be a contender.
Hong calls the DRC the “greatest challenge of my career.”
For the DRC, he adult-sized T.H.O.R. robot must be designed to enter a vehicle, drive it, and then exit the vehicle, walk over rubble, clear objects blocking a door, open the door, and enter a building. The robot then must visually and audibly locate and shut off a leaking valve, connect a hose or connector, climb an industrial ladder and traverse an industrial walkway.
The final and possibly most difficult task: Use a power tool and break through a concrete wall. All these tasks must be accomplished under a set time limit.
T.H.O.R. will be based on efforts already made with a newer robot developed by the Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory: ASH, a project Hong is working on for the U.S. Navy. That robot, part of project SAFFiR -- Shipboard Autonomous Fire Fighting Robot – is being designed to extinguish fires aboard naval ships and also is designed to resemble a human, walk on uneven surfaces and steps, and safely clear the knee-knockers found in many naval ships.
The team will also develop a second robot, THOR-OP, an Open Platform robot for possible commercial use. The hardware will be made open source after the competition, allowing others to use the design for free, just as with the the successful DARwIn-OP humanoid robot developed from support from the National Science Foundation. Currently more than 400 units of DARwIn-OP are being used worldwide for robotics research and education, said Hong.
This is Hong’s second participation in a challenge put forth by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. He worked on the agency’s DARPA Urban Challenge, a competition that tasked research teams with developing autonomous vehicles that could operate in a city. Virginia Tech captured Third Place in the 2007 Urban Challenge, and the research inspired later university projects such as Hong’s participation in the Blind Driver Challenge.
“When DARPA announced the first Grand Challenge and then the Urban Challenge, many people thought it was impossible,” Hong said. “We now have technology to have autonomous cars nearing real use in our lives and even to let blind people drive. The Robotics Challenge will have a similar impact.”
The team will also develop a second robot, THOR-OP, an Open Platform robot for possible commercial use. The hardware will be made open source after the competition, allowing others to use the design for free, just as with the the successful DARwIn-OP humanoid robot developed from support from the National Science Foundation. Currently more than 400 units of DARwIn-OP are being used worldwide for robotics research and education, said Hong.
This is Hong’s second participation in a challenge put forth by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. He worked on the agency’s DARPA Urban Challenge, a competition that tasked research teams with developing autonomous vehicles that could operate in a city. Virginia Tech captured Third Place in the 2007 Urban Challenge, and the research inspired later university projects such as Hong’s participation in the Blind Driver Challenge.
“When DARPA announced the first Grand Challenge and then the Urban Challenge, many people thought it was impossible,” Hong said. “We now have technology to have autonomous cars nearing real use in our lives and even to let blind people drive. The Robotics Challenge will have a similar impact.”
Hong, is the Associate Professor and the Founding Director of RoMeLa. His research focuses on robot locomotion and manipulation, autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots. He is the inventor of a number of novel robots and mechanisms, including the 'whole skin locomotion' for mobile robots inspired by how amoeba move, a unique three-legged waking robot STriDER, an air-powered robotic hand RAPHaEL, and the world's first car that can be driven by the blind.
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| RoMeLa's Charli Robot |
Hong's work has been featured on numerous national and international media. Washington Post magazine called Dr. Hong "the Leonardo da Vinci of robots."
Hong also actively leads student teams for various international robotics and design competitions winning numerous top prizes including the RoboCup, the international autonomous robot soccer competition where his team won First Place in both the Kid-Size and Adult-Size Humanoid divisions and brought the Louis Vuitton Cup Best Humanoid Award to the United States for the very first time.
SOURCE Chicago Ideas Week
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