WESTERN AUSTRALIAN robotics team MAGICian/Wambot will pit its autonomous robots and advanced software techniques against the best the world has to offer as one of six finalists in an international military robotics competition.

The WAMBOT in action / Image - Courtesy Dr Adrian Boeing

Lead by researchers from Edith Cowan University (ECU) and the University of Western Australia (UWA), the team will compete at the Multi-Autonomous Ground-robotics International Challenge (MAGIC), run by the Australian Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) and the US Department of Defence, for a first prize of $US750,000.

WA team coordinator and lecturer at ECU’s School of Computing and Security Science Dr Adrian Boeing says the robot they have created is extremely versatile in operation.

“The robot performs mapping, navigation and surveillance tasks. It drives through an area whilst avoiding hazardous zones and generates a map containing not only the locations of buildings, but also the locations of people in the area, and other objects of interest such as trees, vehicles and simulated land-mines.

“Our robots work together to accomplish goals that are impossible for a single robot to achieve acting on its own.”

The robot features a bevy of impressive hardware-based abilities but the real magic is in the software used to control it.

“The robot uses a number of advanced technologies including scanning laser range finders (LIDAR), inertial measurement units (IMU), computer vision, sensor fusion and simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM),” says Dr Boeing.

“But it’s actually constructed from off-the-shelf components, so the mechanical and electrical design of the robot is not very complicated.

“All the hard work is in the software that controls the robot. The software for the robot is very complex with a large number of interconnected software modules each responsible for a different section of the robots capabilities.”

Dr Boeing says just making the finals of MAGIC was extremely hard work but very satisfying.

“We had a number of interim demonstrations and presentations with a final demonstration to the MAGIC 2010 technical assessment panel in June.

“This involved the construction of an extensive test scenario of obstacle courses and outdoor environments that our robots had to successfully navigate and generate maps, whilst tracking, monitoring and evading human combatants.”

But that hard work may yet pay handsome dividends. While the robot was designed with military functionality in mind, the commercial value of the technology could be widespread.

“The robot is not only limited to defence applications, the technology we are developing can be directly transferred to other sectors such as the resources industry and emergency services. We see enormous commercial potential for the robots in these spaces,” says Dr Boeing.

For more information on WAMBOT, visit the website.

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