Watch out, world.
Robots emerged from a local lab Wednesday to show spectators they’re ready for a war challenge.
A team of researchers and students from the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research and Virginia Tech have been constructing “battle-ready” robots as part of the 2010 Multi-Autonomous Ground-robotic International Challenge, or MAGIC.
MAGIC judges visited the 10 participating teams in June to narrow the competition down to five teams. The local team will find out in July if it made the cut.
The final challenge, which involves performing several tasks within time constraints, takes place in Australia in November, where first place wins $750,000.
“I believe we impressed them,” said associate professor Tomonari “Tomo” Furukawa, who leads the team.
The team’s cooperative control strategy — how the robots communicate with each other — is the first one of this kind of complexity, he said.
Even if the team doesn’t make it to the final challenge, Tomo said the team’s work would continue for unmanned vehicles.
“Including the battlefield scenario, we have lots of places where people are working in the face of risk,” Tomo said. “These people could work in a safer environment more efficiently.”
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