Disasters like Japan's cataclysmic earthquake and nuclear crisis last year can be too dangerous and too big for human responders. Yet “with all our robotics, we're really not prepared for that kind of an event,” says Jorgen Pedersen, founder of Pittsburgh's RE2.
Now the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), the military's “primary innovation engine,” has selected RE2 to participate in its Robotics Challenge. The goal: to develop software to control robots in the most catastrophic disasters.
Working with Soar Technology in Ann Arbor, Michigan and the University of Texas in Arlington, the RE2 team is one of 11 groups chosen to develop software that will allow a humanoid, bi-pedal robot to perform complex tasks such as walking across and clearing rubble, opening a door, climbing a ladder, turning a valve and, most challenging according to Pedersen, get into, turn on and drive a utility vehicle.
All of the teams will compete in June to determine the top six entries, who will receive additional funding and a walking robot to further develop and test their software.
Pedersen founded RE2 (pronounced RE Squared) in 2001 under Carnegie Mellon's National Robotics Engineering Center. Since then, the company has become a leading developer of robotic arms for tasks such as bomb removal. Two hundred fifty of RE2's “intelligent, modular manipulation systems” are currently at work in Afghanistan, Pedersen says.
The company has grown from 20 employees in 2010 to almost 60 today. The military and public safety (police, fire, etc.) are the largest markets, Pedersen says, and the company is now looking to diversify into agriculture, healthcare and materials handling.
Source: Jorgen Pedersen, RE2
Writer: Elise Vider