Ohio State helps bring robots up to speed for disaster relief
The Ohio State University College of Engineering is part of a 10-school collaboration, led by Drexel University, working to advance robotics technology for disaster relief as part of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Robotics Challenge. The team, dubbed DRC-HUBO, passed the first phase of critical design review by DARPA program management staff and will compete in head-to-head trials in December. The goal of the competition is to develop robots that can perform the hazardous activities associated with disaster response.
“The DARPA Robotics Challenge will be the biggest show in robotics this decade and will fundamentally transform our interaction with robots,” said Dr. Paul Oh, a professor in Drexel’s College of Engineering and the DRC-HUBO team leader.
Researchers from each of the 10 partner schools are working to tackle specific aspects of the challenge, which is broken into eight events related to disaster mitigation. Robots must mount, drive and dismount a vehicle; travel across rubble; remove debris; open a door, climb a ladder; use a tool to break through a concrete wall, locate and shut off a leaky valve; and remove and replace a pump.
Yuan Zheng, professor of electrical and computer engineering, leads Ohio State’s efforts in the challenge. According to Zheng, having a robot capable of accomplishing even one of these tasks would be a giant leap forward from the current state-of-the-art in robotics technology.
“A robot can’t do any of these tasks today. Just getting a robot to climb into a vehicle is very difficult, almost impossible, to perform,” he said.
The Ohio State team is responsible for equipping the robot to travel across rubble, which might be anything from rocks to large piles of debris. The group developed what they consider to be an innovative gait, inspired by the poles skiers use to aid in balance.
“We developed an innovative update, which adds two canes to the robot to increase its support area and stability,” Zheng said. “Using this approach, if the surface becomes sloped or uneven the robot still has some margin to maintain stability. It’s much better than a two-legged robot.”
The removable canes increase the robot’s stability without making permanent changes to its structure, which could affect its performance in other challenge events.
Following the critical design review, the DRC-HUBO team is one of six teams remaining in Track A–the group made up of teams who are creating their own robot platform and operation software. In addition to Drexel and Ohio State, DRC-HUBO is leveraging the collective knowledge and labors of engineers from Columbia University, the University of Delaware, Georgia Institute of Technology, Indiana University, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Purdue University, Swarthmore College and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
the critical design review marks the mid-point of the first phase of the 27-month challenge that began in October 2012. Phase 1 will culminate with the trials in December at the Homestead-Miami Speedway in Homestead, Fla. and the teams that advance will receive additional funding from DARPA and move into Phase 2, which will give them 12 months to refine their designs before the final head-to-head competition in December 2014.
For more information about team DRC-HUBO visit Drexel University’s website and the DRC-HUBO team site.
