The hard lessons of DARPA's robotics challenge [News]

Abstract

In what must be the biggest public display of robot adoration and empathy ever witnessed, thousands cheered as the team from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) won the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) in Pomona, Calif., on 6 June. Its robot, an adaptable humanoid called DRC-Hubo, beat out 22 other bots from six countries in a two-day competition organized with the aim of advancing the field of disaster robotics. The team from KAIST, which is in Daejeon, South Korea, walked away from the competition with the US $2 million grand prize.