NASA's JPL in DARPA SubT challenge finals for $2 million prize money

The DARPA's Subterranean Challenge, which started three years ago in 2018 is on its final course that started on September 21 and will end on September 24. The event which is sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), saw 30 teams participate but only eight have made it to the finals. Interestingly, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) also has deployed its team CoStar in the contest that could win them a whopping $2 million. 

What is the DARPA challenge?

According to the JPL, this contest aims to bring out demonstrations of multi-robot autonomy in a series of complex underground scenarios and has made the teams converge in Louisville Mega Cavern, Kentucky’s former limestone mine. The participating teams in the Subterranean, also called the SubT challenge, will step up with a common goal of demonstrating “cutting edge robot-autonomy capabilities”, stated the JPL. 

The participants will have an edge over others if they can demonstrate robots that do not need human assistance and can be used by first responders underground where GPS and direct communication won’t be an option. 

NASA’s team CoStar

The agency has also sent a 60-member team, including engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), South Korea and Sweden, that comprise the Collaborative Subterranean Autonomous Robot (CoStar) team. However, NASA is the only team that is trying to hit two birds with one stone. Despite the tempting prize money, NASA’s team stated that developing advanced AI technologies would benefit all of humanity. 

Ali Agha, a JPL roboticist and CoStar’s principal investigator said, “Our focus in SubT is not the competition. Rather, this is an incredible opportunity to expedite the technology development and develop new autonomy and AI [artificial intelligence] capabilities for NASA and for the good of humanity”. The team believes that the robots used in underground environments can also be used in alien world exploration. 

According to JPL, CoStar will be demonstrating a wide variety of robots including driving, walking, and flying ones and their application in caves and extreme environments of other worlds would need zero human assistance. The SubT challenge reportedly consists of two tracks: the Systems track and the Virtual track which are further divided into subdomains of Tunnel, Urban, and Cave Circuits. The final event will be a combination of all three subdomains and will be held in the mine’s  4-million-square-foot area, the agency revealed. 

Image: Twitter/@NASAJPL