The group that staged NASA's first-ever Centennial Challenge has issued its first public draft rules for yet another $250,000 contest - this time, for gangs of robots capable of piecing together a plumbing system under outer-space conditions.
NASA is putting up the prize money and says the program "may directly affect how exploration is conducted on the moon." Come to think of it, the challenge just might affect how construction jobs are done here on Earth as well.
I discussed the robo-contest in broad strokes last month, but last night the California-based Spaceward Foundation said it has fleshed out the draft rules and invited public comment. Through July 15, comments can be sent to RoboticRules@Spaceward.org. The final rules are to be published by July 31.
Spaceward's Ben Shelef summarized the concept behind the contest, which is known as the Telerobotic Construction Challenge or the Remote Robotic Assembly competition:
"In order to win the prize, a team has to complete a robotic assembly task, but it must do so while controlling the robots from across the country with a control latency of 20 minutes! The team never gets to see the arena, except through the eyes of its robots. Even advanced knowledge of the arena is accomplished through a 'scout' robot that the team must build.
"The task is to construct a water-tight pipeline between a simulated 'resource generator' and a 'storage tank.' The task is complete when water can flow freely into the latter. The team has 24 hours to complete the task.
"The team 'launches' its robots to Mars by packaging them in a 'lander' and shipping them to the arena. The lander is simply a structure that can survive shipping and allow the robots to egress. When we receive a lander, we simply place it in the arena and activate the communication link. From that point and until assembly is complete, there is no more human intervention except through the communication link."
The robots will have to assemble their pipeline from standard plumbing fixtures, and move the 500-liter, 50-kilogram (130-gallon, 110-pound) storage tank at least 25 meters (82 feet) away from the "resource generator" tank that's filled with water - over terrain that's strewn with boulders and sand traps.
Did I mention that each robot can't measure more than 50 centimeters (20 inches) in any direction, and has to weigh less than the tank it will help move?
The competition would kick off in the latter part of 2007, but it won't be one head-to-head event, like the Space Elevator Games that Spaceward presented last year and plans to repeat this October. Instead, the teams that register (and pay an as-yet-undetermined entry fee) will alert Spaceward when they're ready to make an assembly attempt. The competition ends when no more teams are scheduled to compete, or when a two-year time limit runs out.
If only one team succeeds at the task, that team gets the full $250,000 NASA purse. If more than one team is successful, the first two or three finishers split the money according to a weighted formula.
So what's the point? "If the Telerobotic Construction Challenge can successfully demonstrate the remote assembly of simple and complex structures, many aspects of exploration in general will be affected for the better," Scott Horowitz, NASA's associate administrator for exploration systems, explained in a news release.
Spaceward expands on that idea in its Web posting:
"Suppose we want to build an in-situ fuel/oxygen generation plant on Mars, comprised of an ore processor, a reactor and storage tanks. Or suppose we want to build a human habitat, comprised of several interconnected habitation and support modules.
"With today's technology, we already know how to build the basic machinery, and we also already know how to send payloads to the Martian surface... The problem is that we can only send up to a ton or two at a time (The Spirit and Opportunity packages only weighed about half a ton each), and so have to assemble the structures on the Martian surface - with the human operators still on Earth!
"This is difficult, since communication between Earth and Mars takes 20 minutes (at best) and so immediate 'remote control' is not feasible - check out the Mars Rover Autonomous Mobility Web page for an explanation - and keep in mind that cooperative tasks are infinitely more complex than simply 'driving around'...
"Of the technology development that is required, the topic of cooperative remote robotic operations is probably the one that is the least well understood."
The potential for interplanetary missions is obvious: Theoretically, you could have the robots put together a moon base - and have a hot cup of tea waiting for the arrival of their human overlords.
But if such a system is feasible, you could unleash the robotic chain gangs on tasks closer to home as well. We already have remote-controlled bomb disposal squads in Iraq, and hardhat robots in Japan. Iimagine turning troops of robo-wildcatters loose on inhospitable oilfields, or sending robo-cleanup crews to hazardous waste sites, or switching on a robo-construction crew to build a garage, or even calling the robo-plumber to unclog a pipe.
Could 21st-century life eventually look like a "Jetsons" episode? Is it an technically impossible dream, or just an impossibly expensive dream? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below.
And while we're on the subject, there are a couple of additional red-letter days coming right up for robots and their fans:
- The RoboCup is continuing in Bremen, Germany, with Carnegie Mellon University's robo-commentators following the action on a mini-soccer field.
- Carnegie Mellon is also gearing up for its Robot Hall of Fame induction ceremony next Wednesday. As we reported in April, this year's honorees include Maria, the shiny she-robot from Fritz Lang's "Metropolis"; Gort from "The Day the Earth Stood Still"; David from the movie "A.I."; Sony's Aibo robo-dog (which plays a mean game of RoboCup soccer); and the SCARA industrial robot.
The keynote address will be given by Daniel H. Wilson, whose tongue-in-cheek guidebook "How to Survive the Robot Uprising" is being made into a Mike Myers movie for release next year.
We held our own "People's Choice" robot contest in April as well, and you might remember that B9 from "Lost in Space" (a.k.a. Robot) won by an electronic nose. B9's acceptance speech for the virtual award was written way back in 1965, for the original TV show:
"My micromechanism thanks you, my computer tapes thank you, and I thank you."