NASA's RoboSimian to Compete in DARPA Robotics Challenge
Posted on June 4, 2015
NASA's ape-like robot named RoboSimian will be competing in the upcoming DARPA Robotics Challenge. The event takes place at the Fairplex in Pomona, California, June 5 and 6. RoboSimian will face robotic competitors in events including opening a door, driving a vehicle, cutting a hole in a wall, opening a valve and crossing a field of debris.
RoboSimian should excel at these tasks. It is a four limbed robot. It was designed to perform dexterous tasks and traverse across complicated terrain. RoboSimian uses LiDAR to map its environment in 3D. It has four sensors in its wrists and ankles. The arms of RoboSimian each have seven different joints.
RoboSimian was launched following the devastating 2011 earthquake in Japan. NASA calls the robot a "four-limbed disaster response robot." It is being developed at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The ideas was to have a robot that could explore dangerous places a human could not go, such as a damaged reactor.
NASA released this video about RoboSimian that explains some of the engineering that went into the complex looking robot. The video shows RoboSimian traversing a landscape of concrete blocks. It also shows some animations of some other tasks RoboSimian could perform, such as climbing and turning a wheel. NASA says RoboSimian - or a similar robot - could be clinging to cliffs on Mars or an asteroid someday in the future. Take a look: