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DARPA's Virtual Robotics Challenge: OSRF Gets Simulator Ready
The most anticipated robot event of the year, the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC), is heating up. In fact, the DRC isn't just a single event. It actually consists of three increasingly difficult competitions, and the first one is the Virtual Robotics Challenge (VRC), in which teams compete through a computer simulation of a robot and the challenge tasks. For the last month, teams from around the world have been submitting entries to the VRC qualification event, in order to earn a place in the VRC itself, and the latest results are in.
The qualifiers ended last week, and 26 teams made the cut in Track B (funded) as well as Track C (unfunded). We've got an overview of the simulation environment and the tasks that teams will need to complete in the VRC (which takes place later this month), straight from the Open Source Robotics Foundation.
We're assuming most teams want to keep their strategies under wraps, but you can watch a video from ROBIL, an Israeli robotics consortium that's qualified for the VRC, showing how they tackled some of the qualification tasks here.
To come up with these tasks, DARPA talked to disaster responders like firefighters, police, and nuclear engineers, asking them "what would you want a robot to be able to do?" In addition to things like walking over rubble and driving, a high priority was basic tool use and manipulation of hoses and valves, to (say) get cooling water into a nuclear power plant after a disaster.
As with the goal of any simulation, OSRF has put a lot of time into making Gazebo as close as possible to the real world. Maybe not so much in looks, but in how everything operates. For example, you'll notice in the video that the simulated robot doesn't move perfectly smoothly, and (if you remember), the real robot (Boston Dynamics' ATLAS) doesn't either. Ideally, teams will be able to take all the code that they've come up with as part of the VRC and have it run in exactly the same way on the actual ATLAS hardware. It won't happen this way in practice, of course, because no simulation is perfect, but OSRF has worked (and continues to work) tremendously hard on Gazebo.
Even though DARPA is footing the bill for this stuff, everyone who uses Gazebo will benefit from the improvements made to a specific set of important simulation problems, like walking. The overall goal of Gazebo is that teams shouldn't have to worry about the simulator, or even know how it works. Instead, they can focus on just writing clever code to make the robot as efficient and effective as possible, and the better Gazebo works for the VRC, the better it works in every other case as well.
Unfortunately, we're not going to be allowed to watch the VRC as it happens. The reason is that, when a given team is competing live, it gets to see only what the robot sees (first-person view), which would be the case in a real disaster scenario. In other words, teams won't be allowed to switch to a third-person view showing the robot from different positions and angles, as is commonly seen in games and simulations. If DARPA were to broadcast these different points of view, as spectators would expect to see, the team competing live could also get to see these images.
However, OSRF says that all of the VRC data will be recorded, and they'll make up some videos for us to watch after it's all over. We're hoping there will be professional gaming-style commentary from OSRF and DARPA experts (and maybe the teams themselves) to go along with it.
The VRC is scheduled to take place in a few weeks, and we'll be bringing you updates as we get them. Remember, some of these teams have a shot at getting themselves some actual ATLASes at the DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials this December. We're not exactly sure when (or where) the DRC Trials will take place, but we're for sure going to find out. And then sneak in.
[ OSRF ]
Source: http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-software/osrf-prepares-for-darpa-virtual-robotics-challenge
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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