ARGOS Challenge: 5 days of competition

03/13/2017

Day 1

Heavy scheduled program under heavy rain. Each team is given one hour and a half to perform two missions of inspection in autonomous mode. The Japanese team AIR-K is the first to start, with a major difficulty: “our robot is not water-proofed yet”, Keiji says, the team coordinator, “so rain is not good news!” “The record of today’s missions is rather mixed, continues Keiji. The first mission went quite well but we encountered technical difficulties that required several remote interventions. Despite that, the robot localized and analyzed two out of the three checkpoints.” AIR-K has indeed developed an innovating system that guarantees high reliability in the reading and analysis of recorded images. “We’ll catch up tomorrow!” concludes Keiji enthusiastically.

Day 2

The goal of today’s mission is to evaluate the mobility of the robots and their capacity to detect obstacles. On the schedule: 1h30 of autonomous mode in order to operate an inspection mission on the ground floor, the first floor, as well as outside of the competition structure, forcing the robots to move on a different type of ground: the gravel. “And it wasn’t the only surprise of the day, Stefan, from the Austrian-German team ARGONAUTS, explains: Our robot came face to face to a very long wooden ramp. We weren’t expecting such an obstacle! In front of its refusal, we had to take control for a couple of minutes, before switching again to the autonomous mode for the rest of the mission.” When the mission was over, Stefan confided: "So far, everything is going well, we are satisfied, but the competition has just begun!”

Day 3

Today, the robots have to detect, localize and measure two suspicious heating sources as well as an ultrasonic gas leak and to alert the operator. They also have to cope with inconsistencies between their 3D map of the test site, and the reality of the field (displaced or incorrectly oriented manometers). “The mission went rather well, declares Marco of the Swiss team LIO. The robot demonstrated its inspection and detection skills. And it has survived a fall!” Did this incident put an end to the mission? “Not at all” Marco answers, “once he was back on its feet, he started again and actually showed a great precision by finishing its mission at the exact same location from which he started, as it was requested.” The mission ended well for LIO. “Our four-legged robot is quite robust!” Marco concludes, with a broad smile.

Day 4

The sun is shining on Lacq for this, the fourth day of the test. Today, many unexpected events are attempting to destabilize the robots. The objective: evaluate the capacities in terms of detection, mobility and security with, for example, the launching of the general alarm, two shutdowns of the robot communication systems (the wifi), two simulated of gas leaks and the presence of an operator in the way of the robot. “It wasn’t our day, says Luis from the Spanish-Portuguese team, FOXIRIS, the system of the localization functioned very well but a series of technical problems led the robots to make navigational mistakes or to detect a suspicious heat spot several times, which turned to be the Sun.” So not the expected success. “No indeed, Luis says, we lacked a bit of time these last weeks to make any final tuning. But we learned so much throughout this project, and that is a very positive thing.”

Day 5

It’s the final day of the competition. The last opportunity for the robots to show what they can do. The only information given to the teams was that the robots will be tested for the first time in an emergency scenario and a downgraded situation. The program for today includes the manual activation of the robots’ emergency stop mechanism, disruptions to the WIFI network, positive (barrels, flexible hoses) and negative (ditches) obstacles, to mention just some of the challenges awaiting the robots and their teams. “The mission started out well, confirms Xavier from the VIKINGS team, until we got to the heavy rain simulation scenario (and/or triggering of the fire-fighting system). The robot got far too wet and one of its electronic systems failed. We had to finish the mission in degraded and remote-controlled mode.” A final word to round off this particularly intensive competition week? “Whatever the results of the Challenge might be, Xavier continues, we have been inspired by this experience and it will change the way we see our future now.”