POMONA, Calif. (AP) — The robots drove, walked through rubble, climbed stairs, turned valves and sometimes fell, amid cheers and groans from a crowd of thousands at the Fairplex in Pomona, California.

After three years of research, development and an obstacle course of competition, a South Korean team on Saturday won the three-year and $3.5-million U.S. contest to create a robot capable of responding to disaster conditions that are unsafe for humans.

Team Kaist of Daejeon took home $2-million in first-place prize money for its DRC-Hubo robot, which successfully completed eight tasks related to disaster response in less than 45 minutes at the DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals.

The contest by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) started after the 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan. Workers couldn’t vent hydrogen from the overloaded reactors without enduring excess radiation. The idea was to create a robot that could do such important emergency tasks in the future and get to the problem site.

Competition was fierce among 23 international teams, including a dozen from the United States and 11 from Japan, Germany, Italy, South Korea and Hong Kong. The robots were timed while navigating eight tasks they would likely encounter in emergency scenarios. The challenge required the teams have their robots increasingly difficult competitions over two years.

Team IHMC Robotics of Pensacola, Florida, finished second, winning $1 million for its robot Running Man. Tartan Rescue of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and its robot CHIMP designed by Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center came in third, winning $500,000.

The event was live-streamed and YouTube videos culling together clips of the robots taking falls throughout the competition were tweeted out.

“These robots are big and made of lots of metal, and you might assume people seeing them would be filled with fear and anxiety,” said Gill Pratt, DARPA program manager and the competition organizer in a statement. “But we heard groans of sympathy when those robots fell. And what did people do every time a robot scored a point? They cheered! It’s an extraordinary thing, and I think this is one of the biggest lessons from DRC_the potential for robots not only to perform technical tasks for us, but to help connect people to one another.”

sumber: seattletimes.com

ALOR SETAR: The Asean Regional Forum Disaster Relief Exercise (ARF Direx) is vital in testing civil and military preparedness for disasters.

National Security Council secretary Datuk Thajudeen Abdul Wahab said the exercise aimed to create synergy and co-operation between Asean countries based on regional disaster management experiences.

The exercise, he said, would also put into practice ways to overcome challenges in any disaster.

“One of the challenges is managing the media. For example, during the Kuala Krai floods last year, we could not inform the media about what was happening (at the time). We disaster managers were biting our nails on how to manage it. We didn’t want the whole country to panic as well,” he said in an interview yesterday.

He said other challenges included mass co-ordination in times of crisis, casualty management, aid distribution and ways to manage assistance from foreign countries.

“We also have to manage the needs of vulnerable people, including senior citizens and the disabled,” he added.

While the exercise has been conducted for quite some time, this year’s series stands out as it is the first after Asean leaders formed the “One Asean, One Response” initiative.

“It also has the largest participation. More than 3,000 people are involved, including 1,280 foreign participants,” he said.

Thajudeen related an incident following the Nepal earthquake when Malaysia and Singapore rescuers were the first on scene.

“At first, rescuers from both countries were diverted to Calcutta but we managed to teleconference and co-ordinate. When the Thais arrived, they also co-operated with us,” he said.

He added that one of the most memorable moments of the search and rescue in Nepal was the sight of Malaysia’s Smart team members, the Thai search and rescue team and members of Singapore’s Civil Defence rescuing and carrying an injured victim together.

“We want to have such co-operation between Asean countries. This exercise aims to foster that,” he said.

Thajudeen said the exercise would be split into two parts – a table-top exercise and a field exercise.

“The table top deals with theory. We present the countries involved with different disaster scenarios and ask for their solutions.

“It has to be done fast and the participants must treat it like it is a real-life situation.”

The field exercise presents participants with situations mimicking a real disaster.

“We want to find the best practices and best solutions, which will be used in disaster management in the country,” he said.

The exercise, led by the NSC, will see simulated land, air and sea rescue missions involving a multi-country approach.