A robot from South Korea took home the $2 million first-place prize after winning the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Robotics Challenge Finals.
The DRC-Hubo robot from Team KAIST was much faster than the other robots, completing the eight tasks in a winning time of 44 minutes, 28 seconds on the eight tasks.
The second-place finisher, Team IHMC Robotics from the Institute of Human and Machine Cognition in Pensacola, Fla., completed eight tasks in 50 minutes, 26 seconds. Team IHMC won $1 million.
CHIMP, a four-limbed robot designed by Carnegie Mellon University’s Tartan Rescue Team, came in third ($500,000) with a time of 55 minutes, 15 seconds, which was the best time in Day 1 of the two-day competition.
The DRC-Hubo is a collaboration between the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology’s (KAIST) Humanoid Robot Research Center and the Rainbow Co., which was spun out of the KAIST research lab.
DRC-Hubo, a humanoid robot, is an innovative pairing of bipedal motion and wheeled motion whenever it dropped to its knees. It stands 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighs 176 pounds. On its knees, the machine could roll around to cover lots of ground quickly and without any fear of tumbling over. Switching to bipedal mode, DRC-Hubo could navigate up stairways.
The video below shows DRC-Hubo in action at the finals. DARPA showed this video as it was awarding KAIST the grand prize of $2 million. The video shows the robot completing tasks in fast motion.
And here’s a video of DRC-Hubo completing the final task and Team KAIST celebrating the fastest time.
