[Marc Rutherford] A village in England will host a robot Hide ’n Seek next month,
where 11 teams drawn from private companies and universities compete to
sniff out snipers, roadside bombs and other hidden dangers while
relaying real-time images back to a command post.
The MoD Grand Challenge, as it is called, is billed as the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) answer to the US DARPA Grand Challenge,
except it’s military robots that compete against one another instead of
robotic cars. The purpose is to boost development of small robot teams
capable of scouting out and alerting troops to potentially unpleasant
surprises on the urban battlefield.
The robots must autonomously negotiate complex, unfamiliar terrain and
urban clutter to locate the threats. Points are earned based on number
of threats located in one hour. Points are lost if a team resorts to
remote control to maneuver their robots at any stage.
One team, Stellar
Consortium, will employ two aerial UAVs with thermal, visual, and radar
sensors equipment to gather area-wide surveillance over the village.
The data is then used to direct a small robot on the ground.
The Swarm
Systems team will field eight, battery-powered, GPS-guided,
Frisbee-sized, propeller-driven Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) called
"Owls". The Owls hover and dart like birds, while communicating with
one another and a base station using Wi-Fi.
The highest scoring team gets a shot at a lucrative MoD contract and a
chance to see their system put to work in Afghanistan or southern Iraq.
Source: http://www.cnet.com/8301-13639_1-9931526-42.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=MilitaryTech
