Yesterday, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced a new contest: create a humanoid robot that can navigate a world made for humans. Teams will compete in staged disaster scenarios that will require robots to do things like drive a utility vehicle, climb up an industrial ladder, use a tool to break through a concrete wall, close a valve in a leaking pipe and replace a cooling pump. For today’s robots, that’s pretty much an impossible list of tasks, which is why the prize is $2 million. While nothing like DARPA’s dream robot exists today, researchers have made impressive progress when it comes to humanoid robots. We take a look at five of them and examine how close they are to fitting the prize-winning specifications.
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