US$1.6 million prize pool for joint Australia-US UGV challenge

The Australian Department of Defence and the United States Army Research Development & Engineering Command (RDECOM) are jointly sponsoring a new urban unmanned ground vehicle grand challenge competition with a prize pool of US$1.6 million.

The Multi-Autonomous Ground-robotic International Challenge (or MAGIC) is intended to "attract innovative proposals from worldwide research organisations to develop next-generation fully autonomous ground vehicle systems that can be deployed effectively in military operations and civilian emergency situations" say organisers.

The competition will demonstrate "advanced intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities using a UGV in what competition organisers describe as a "dynamic urban environment."

Key objectives of the challenge include:

•Accelerating the "development of autonomous and unmanned vehicle technology in areas that include: task allocation, multi-UGV control, tactical behaviour, machine intelligence, dynamic planning and re-planning, data and sensor fusion, human machine interfaces, multi-aspect situational awareness, and systems integration."

•Improving "current human-to-vehicle control ratios by demonstrating that multi-UGV cooperatives can operate effectively with limited supervision by humans in realistic environments."

•Shifting "the perceptions within the technical and operational communities regarding the state-of-the-art of autonomous multi-vehicle control by demonstrating the augmentation of realistic military activity in changing environments."

•Attracting and "energise a wide community of participants to bring fresh insights to the problem of developing robust autonomous multi-vehicle cooperatives and to identify and transition technologies to meet emerging requirements."

Shortlisted competitors "will need to field cooperatives of unmanned vehicle prototypes with the ability to autonomously and dynamically coordinate, plan and carry out tasks against changing priorities" the organisers say.

The final competition phase, being held in November 2010 in outback South Australia, will require competitors to "accurately and completely explore and map the challenge area; correctly locate, classify and recognise all simulated threats; and complete all phases within 3.5 hours."

The actual location of the MAGIC event is not being officially disclosed until June 2010. Australian DoD sources indicate that a Special Forces urban training facility in the Woomera restricted zone may be under consideration.

Competition entries close 4 September this year with technical proposals due by 2 October. An initial shortlist of ten competitors will be released 19 October with these to undergo further review leading to a shortlist of five teams on 16 November.

The five shortlisted contenders will each receive funded research grants worth US$100,000 to further advance their concepts into prototype systems with 50% down payments made at the time of short listing.

A final round of short listing will be held between 7 and 21 June 2010, at which time the balance of the research grant will be handed over.

The prize pool on offer to the three surviving teams will be in the form of research awards worth US$750,000, US$250,000, and US$100,000.

Australian minister for defence material and science Greg Combet says MAGIC finalists will "also have the unique opportunity to qualify for further funding under the US Joint Concept Technology Demonstrator (JCTD) Program, so that their prototypes can be transitioned into operational capability. If an Australian competitor is among the top three finalists, that organisation would also be considered for funding under the Capability & Technology Demonstrator Program managed by DSTO."

The launch of MAGIC comes in parallel to the Australian Defence Science and Technology Organisation closing down its long running ‘automation of the battle space' research programme on 30 June this year. MAGIC had been readying for launch by Combet on 1 July but was delayed at the request of his office due to parallel plans for the release of Australia's new defence capability plan on that same date.

MAGIC organisers describe the challenge as being designed "to test the ability of the multi-vehicle cooperatives to autonomously and dynamically coordinate, plan and re-plan their task allocation and execution strategies against a changing environment while simultaneously providing a unified situational awareness picture.

"To succeed, a minimum of three UGVs, supervised by a maximum of two operators, must autonomously coordinate their activities to safely, efficiently and effectively explore and map their environment and detect, locate, classify, recognise, track and neutralise a number of static and mobile objects of interest...

"This challenge aims to improve the ability of dismounted ground forces to conduct zone reconnaissance in an urban environment by increasing safety and efficiency and reducing cost via the integration of autonomy. It is not about sensor development or vehicle mobility, but about shifting the UGV state-of-the-art from manual and tele-operation to partial or full autonomy.

"It anticipates integration of humans and multiple unmanned vehicle systems to autonomously and dynamically coordinate, plan, and re-plan multi-UGV task allocation and execution strategies against changing environments whilst simultaneously providing effective situational awareness to potential users of the information. Increased autonomy, robot-to-robot collaboration and reduced operator workload are rewarded."