After a year of waiting we finally meet the 11 finalists that the next few days 5 and 6 of June of 2015 will fight to be the winners of the prestigious DARPA Robotics Challenge, without a doubt one of the most famous and recognized competitions in the world of robotics where all the contestants must prove that they are the best in each field. The prize for the winner, no less than 2 million dollars.
Among the finalists, it should be noted that practically most of the finalists have taken the Atlas robot as their starting point, a humanoid created by the prestigious Boston Dynamics that has served everyone as a starting point to get the perfect robot for the DARPA Robotics Challenge where the creatures must prove that they are the best in the different tests imposed, all of them closely related to evacuation and rescue operations.
ATLAS
Undoubtedly, we can classify Atlas as one of the most interesting bets of the DARPA Robotics Challenge, especially if it is finally able to carry out its work in such a spectacular way as the way it is presented by its creators, a team belonging to Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratories.
ATLAS-IAN
ATLAS-IAN is the bet that comes to us from IHMC Robotics, perhaps those who are taking this edition of the DARPA Robotics Challenge more seriously and that show us a kind of simian robot with certain karateka skills that surely will not go unnoticed by anyone.
CHIMP
If you were more or less aware of this year's DARPA Robotics Challenge, you will surely meet Chimp, a prototype that achieved third position in the ranking and that this year is presented again after improving different points such as the speed of execution of movements , mobility and its use.
DRC-WAS
This time what we have is an evolution of a previous project. Specifically, a bet that comes to us from Korea and that is based on Hubo, a robot that already tried its luck in the DARPA Robotics Challenge last year and that has evolved significantly to cope with the new tests.
ESCHER
One of the newcomers to this final is ESCHER, a robot that has been created, designed, manufactured and assembled entirely by a team made up of Virginia Tech students, without a doubt the optimal way to demonstrate that the students of this institution are capable of incredible things, especially in the world of robotics.
FLORIAN
Florian is a robot created by a group of engineers and researchers made up of members from TORC Robotics, Oregon State University, Technische Universität Darmstadt, and Virgina Tech.
HELIOS
First of all I want to introduce you to Helios, a derived humanoid-type robot, as we have previously commented from Atlas, and that has been created, developed and designed by a team of engineers from MIT. Undoubtedly one of the most interesting bets and with the highest expectations of the competition.
HERCULES
By means, Hercules is the only one on this entire list that has been created by developers who today do not belong, as in the rest of the cases, to a large company with enormous financial resources or to a renowned and prestigious university.
ROBOSIMIAN
One of the most famous robots of the event without a doubt is ROBOSIMIAN, a bet carried out by Propulsion Labs that differs from practically the other competitors in that, instead of a humanoid robot, they bet on a kind of ape that moves on all fours.
thor-op
THOR-OP is one of the youngest and most daring finalists to reach the finals of the DARPA Robotics Challenge. Personally, I have to confess that it has always caught my attention, not only because of its possibilities since it was presented for the first time in 2013 and is already a serious candidate for the title, but because of its height of 1.5 meters.
WARNER
WARNER is the commitment created by engineers and developers from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute who for this special occasion have wanted to join forces and collaborate in the development of this model with the experienced robotics engineers from Carnegie Mellon University.