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One thousand feet underground, a four-legged creature scavenges through tunnels in pitch darkness. With vision that cuts through the blackness, it explores a spider web of paths, remembering its every step and navigating with precision. The sound of its movements echo eerily off the walls, but it is not to be feared – this is no wild animal; it is an autonomous rescue robot.

Initially designed to find survivors in collapsed mines, caves, and damaged buildings, that is only part of what it can do.

Created by a team of University of Colorado Boulder researchers and students, the robots placed third as the top US entry and earned $500,000 in prize money at a Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency Subterranean Challenge competition in 2021.

Going Futher

Two years later, they are pushing the technology even further, earning new research grants to expand the technology and create new applications in the rapidly growing world of autonomous systems.

“Ideally you don’t want to put humans in harm’s way in disaster situations like mines or buildings after earthquakes; the walls or ceilings could collapse and maybe some already have,” said Sean Humbert, a professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Robotics Program at CU Boulder. “These robots can be disposable while still providing situational awareness.”

The team developed an advanced system of sensors and algorithms to allow the robots to function on their own – once given an assignment, they make decisions autonomously on how to best complete it.

Advanced Communication

A major goal is to get them from engineers directly into the hands of first responders. Success requires simplifying the way the robots transmit data into something approximating plain English, according to Kyle Harlow, a computer science PhD student.

“The robots communicate in pure math. We do a lot of work on top of that to interpret the data right now, but a firefighter doesn’t have that kind of time,” Harlow said.

To make that happen Humbert is collaborating with Chris Heckman, an associate professor of computer science, to change both how the robots communicate and how they represent the world. The robots’ eyes – a LiDAR sensor – creates highly detailed 3D maps of an environment, 15 cm at a time. That’s a problem when they try to relay information – the sheer amount of data clogs up the network.

“Humans don’t interpret the environment in 15 cm blocks,” Humbert said. “We’re now working on what’s called semantic mapping, which is a way to combine contextual and spatial information. This is closer to how the human brain represents the world and is much less memory intensive.”

High Tech Mapping

The team is also integrating new sensors to make the robots more effective in challenging environments. The robots excel in clear conditions but struggle with visual obstacles like dust, fog, and snow. Harlow is leading an effort to incorporate millimeter wave radar to change that.

“We have all these sensors that work well in the lab and in clean environments, but we need to be able to go out in places such as Colorado where it snows sometimes,” Harlow said.

Where some researchers are forced to suspend work when a grant ends, members of the subterranean robotics team keep finding new partners to push the technology further.

Autonomous Flight

Eric Frew, a professor of aerospace at CU Boulder, is using the technology for a new National Institute of Standards and Technology competition to develop aerial robots – drones – instead of ground robots, to autonomously map disaster areas indoors and outside.

“Our entry is based directly on the Subterranean Challenge experience and the systems developed there,” Frew said.

Some teams in the competition will be relying on drones navigated by human operators, but Frew said CU Boulder’s project is aiming for an autonomous solution that allows humans to focus on more critical tasks.

Although numerous universities and private businesses are advancing autonomous robotic systems, Humbert said other organizations often focus on individual aspects of the technology. The students and faculty at CU Boulder are working on all avenues of the systems and for uses in environments that present extreme challenges.

“We’ve built world-class platforms that incorporate mapping, localization, planning, coordination – all the high level stuff, the autonomy, that’s all us,” Humbert said. “There are only a handful of teams across the world that can do that. It’s a huge advantage that CU Boulder has.”

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The University of Colorado Boulder has started a graduate engineering program in robotics to fill a growing need in an in-demand field.

The CU Regents have approved new Master of Science and PhD degree options in robotics that will provide students a flexible education that merges hardware and software engineering, mathematics and artificial intelligence into a single program.

“Demand is so high for degrees like this across the country; it’s something students and employers really want,” said Sean Humbert, director of the Robotics Program and a professor in the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering.

The program brings together a wide array of faculty, research and class options from the College of Engineering and Applied Science, according to Chris Heckman, associate professor of computer science and the robotics program.

“The workforce in robotics is often siloed, with people only being specialists in certain elements. We want students to be able to work across the field in computer science, mechanical, electrical, aerospace, wherever they need to be,” Heckman said.

Students enrolled in the program can choose from 40+ different courses taught by leading researchers with strong expertise in key areas, including field robotics, reasoning and assurance, smart materials, human-centered robotics and biomedical robotics.

“CU Boulder is really strong in robotics, and now we’re bringing together all that expertise,” Humbert said. “This field is so interdisciplinary, and we have strong connections and teams both within the university and in industry and the public sector.”

Boulder and Colorado’s Front Range is home to many businesses active in robotics, providing educational partnership and career options for students and graduates, according to Alessandro Roncone, associate director of the Robotics Program and an assistant professor of computer science.

“This program positions students at the nexus of innovative research and real-world application. Not only will they be taught by leading experts in the field, but they'll also have the opportunity to become leaders in robotics and AI. We are committed to fostering creativity and innovation, and our strong tech ecosystem locally provides an unparalleled environment for growth and discovery,” Roncone said.

In addition to a research-focused PhD, students enrolled in the master’s program can choose from thesis and non-thesis options, providing graduates with opportunities in academia and technical leadership positions in large industry, startups, emergency services and government.

The program officially launched for the fall 2023 semester, with students transferring into the program from other CU Engineering graduate programs. Prospective students from outside the university will be welcomed starting in fall 2024. That application window is now open.

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Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering Professor Sean Humbert has been named a member of the prestigious Microsystems Exploratory Council (MEC).

Humbert, an expert in micro robotics and systems design, joins 13 other academic and industrial scientists, researchers and engineers serving on the MEC.

The MEC is a study group created and sponsored by the (DARPA). The council’s mission is to help DARPA’s assess the status of advanced microelectronics and microsystems technology as it relates to and national security issues.

“I am excited to learn about all the areas in microsystems science and technology outside of my background and look forward to helping identify new domains for potential research,” Humbert said.

The group’s main responsibility is to identify new research avenues of potential interest. Humbert will bring his expertise in flight dynamics and control, as well as bio-inspired perception and estimation to the council.

He plans to encourage the MEC to explore ways to achieve autonomous locomotion based on principles we can observe in small biological organisms. Humbert said the council can specifically study the development of sensors and feedback architectures that could produce that robust and agile movement.

A second topic that Humbert would like the MEC to examine is biological and neuromorphic computation principles to reduce the size, weight and power (SWaP) of micro robots.

Other responsibilities of the MEC include discovering long-term research goals and performing studies in support of them. The council also introduces new, talented scientists and engineers to problems of national importance, while also keeping a corporate memory of national problems and programs in microelectronics and microsystems.

While Humbert has not worked with the MEC yet, he has a history of successful projects with DARPA. He was recently the primary investigator on a three-year, $4.5 million DARPA grant to compete in the Subterranean Challenge. The University of Colorado Boulder's team placed third in the final competition, winning a $500,000 prize.
 

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The CU Boulder MARBLE team gathers around their underground drone at the Tunnel Circuit Event at NIOSH Coal Mine in Pennsylvania, the first of three challenges led by DARPA.  

On August 9, Professor Sean Humbert and collaborators spent the day doing final testing on their underground drone at Colorado School of Mines Edgar Experimental Mine before heading to Pittsburgh, PA for the first of three increasingly difficult underground search and rescue challenges. In fall 2018, Humbert and his team received a

This week, Humbert's team known as MARBLE and 11 other teams are engaging in the first of three DARPA subterranean challenges. They will be sending drones on a mock search and rescue operation down miles of NIOSH Coal Mine steam tunnels in Pittsburgh, part of the Tunnel Circuit Event. The goal is to autonomously navigate and map these unknown spaces; correctly identify DARPA-specified artifacts which include backpacks, fire extinguishers, and other relevant items; and report artifact positions and three-dimensional maps to DARPA during each deployment.

"It's a significant challenge due to austere conditions such as mud, rocky terrain and low light, lack of GPS and poor device communications," said Humbert. "We are excited to be in second place out of 11 teams after the first two days of deployments."

The competition will continue through the week and will be . 

After the close of the Tunnel Circuit Event, the teams have two more subterranean challenges to go before they are finished. In six months, they will graduate to larger tunnels, such as those that make up the New York subway system. As their final challenge, they will navigate natural caves which add hazards, including mud, rocks and potential cave-ins. The DARPA Subterranean Challenge is set to end in fall 2021. 

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7Qj11diDYI]

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Faculty at CU Boulder are working toward widespread adoption and practical applications for the soft robotic HASEL actuators demonstrated here earlier this year, through a new $2 million award from the National Science Foundation.

Soft robotics is an emerging field of research that promises substantial advantages over traditional rigid robots, allowing for a new generation of soft, human-like robots that will be able to safely collaborate with people. This technology could also improve wearable or implantable soft robotic components for those with disabilities, such as missing limbs, among many other applications.

Assistant Professor and Mollenkopf Faculty Fellow Christoph Keplinger said the award allows the research team to explore new manufacturing methods and effective designs for 3D printing, new electronic driving systems with distributed microscale power delivery and computation, as well as low- and high-level control strategies.

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