IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2012 - 124

*
Turning Point

(continued from page 128)

Figure 2. Illustration of a disaster response scenario part of the DARPA Robotics
Challenge. The robot on the right uses a power tool to break through a wall, and the
one on the left turns a valve to close a leaking pipe. (Image courtesy of DARPA.)

EG:

One of the tasks requires a
robot to drive a vehicle. Why is that
part of the challenge, and is that a
way of imposing human size and
features to the robot?
GP: That was not the intention. It is
really a question of available tools. As an
example, in the Fukushima disaster, they
had fire trucks on hand, but after the first
reactor explosion, they could not have
people drive those fire trucks because the
contamination was high. We want these
robots to really be compatible with all
tools, from earth-moving machinery all
the way down to a screwdriver. We
know that in a disaster, presently, most
of those tools are not going to be set up
to be driven by a robot or teleoperated-
they are mostly going to be the tools that
are at hand, and that includes vehicles. If
you look at [a typical human] environment, the number of vehicles is very
large, so they are what we consider a tool
that is a resource in a disaster that tends
to get used. Notice that this is not a
repeat of the other DARPA challenges
that developed cars that drove by themselves. The robot will be under supervisory control from a person, and so it is
not that we expect the robot to drive on
a path all on its own. This is to show its
dexterity in using various tools and
vehicles are within that set of tools. Now
there is a second benefit that we get from
it, which has to do with the power supply
for the robot itself. We are not going to
disallow tethers to power the robot, so
the vehicle can be a movable base that the
robot can operate a certain distance from.
124

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

EG:

And is a robot allowed to
divide its body into more than one
unit to complete tasks? Can a robot
leave parts of itself behind?
GP: Robots competing in the challenge cannot leave parts behind. We
want to give maximum freedom to the
performers to choose the topology of
the robot that they think is best. So if
during an event, it is best to have a small
part move off and then perform a task
and then come back, that is perfectly
fine. But we want to exclude teams
developing a robot that is specialized
for each task and then just using one at
a time for each. So, it is a one-robot
challenge, but the robot can split apart
and come back together if desired.

EG: In the program, some teams
will get to test their simulation software on an actual robot, which the
U.S. firm Boston Dynamics will build
for DARPA. But how can you be sure
that this DARPA robot will be capable of performing all the tasks that
are part of the challenge? It looks like
you are trying to solve the challenge
that you are proposing . . .
GP: We are not solving the challenge
by developing a robot for the software
teams. The robot itself is only part of the
challenge. As an example, a robot that
has two legs that walks on its own and
does the balancing task, that has been
done; it is been done by the Japanese
and by several U.S. groups also. But that
is not what the challenge is. The challenge is going to be, given these

SEPTEMBER 2012

particular tasks, where does the robot
places its feet, where does it places its
hands, how does it turns the valve, and
how does it opens the door. The locomotion part of it, which is to balance
and decide where the feet are going to be
placed to walk forward, that is actually
not the hard part. In particular, how do
you make best use of the human [operator] in this team, to give the supervisory
commands to the machine, to say, grab
that handhold, turn that valve, pick up
this bolt those are the more difficult parts.

EG: Still, from the scenario, it looks
like the technology required is too
far off, and though you might be
able to have a robot do one or two
tasks, performing them all with a
single robot seems really far-fetched.
GP: We think that it is actually
"DARPA hard," but not an impossible
thing to do. And the reason that we are
spending the funds on this is actually to
push the field forward and make this
capability a reality. We are also trying to
widen the supplier base for the capability
that would help here. So, we picked a
pretty hard goal that is absolutely true. It
is a goal that has a lot of risk, but a lot of
reward as well, and that is really the
theme of what DARPA tries to do. If we
look at the driverless-car world before
the DARPA Challenges occurred, there
were a lot of research efforts that showed
the cars moving a small distance down
the road, on a curve, and maybe recognizing some fraction of the time where
they were with respect to the road. And I
think that the previous challenges really
pushed the field forward to the state
where now other firms have picked this
up and are making those cars. Some day,
not too far from now, we will just get in
our car and sit and talk to the person
who is next to us and not worry about
how to drive. And that would be an
amazingly great thing. I expect the same
sort of thing will happen with the new
challenge we are launching.
A version of this interview appeared
originally in IEEE Spectrum's robotics
blog Automaton.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2012