We have been pleased to learn that a lot of the DARPA challenge teams will be using our 3-Finger Adaptive Gripper for the final that will be coming up in California next June. Like many teams that have built different prototypes with different options, the NASA based team has fluctuated between 2 of the models that they are working on.
Both prototypes, RoboSimian and Surrogate, are designed and built at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. It was a difficult choice the team had make to choose between the 2 robots and decide which one would represent them at the Challenge. Both robots have good qualities and of course they also have downsides that make the choice quite intense for the JPL team.
"Surge and its predecessor, RoboSimian, were designed to extend humanity's reach, going into dangerous places such as a nuclear power plant during a disaster scenario such as we saw at Fukushima. They could take simple actions such as turning valves or flipping switches to stabilize the situation or mitigate further damage," said Brett Kennedy, principal investigator for the robots at JPL.
Both robots have LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging). This hat-shaped device on the robot's head sends laser signals throughout the environment and can recreate a 3D map of its surroundings. Also, both robots are running almost the exact same code, so this feature makes no difference for the choice of robot to be used in the DARPA challenge.
"It comes down to the fact that Surrogate is a better manipulation platform and faster on benign surfaces, but RoboSimian is an all-around solution, and we expect that the all-around solution is going to be more competitive in this case," Kennedy said.
So handling wasn't the only argument NASA had to consider in making their choice between their prototypes when considering the competition. With the recent rules update of the DARPA Robotic Challenge, the point are really well split between the handling and maneuvering tasks. This will be very interesting to see RoboSimian maneuvering a car for example. However, it must be more points to be gained from getting through the hazardous terrain. In fact, all the teams have their ups and down sides, let's see who is going to be the best team. To learn more about the 3-Finger Adaptive Gripper and its applications, take a look at the following link.