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MAGIC 2010: Super-smart robots wanted for international challenge

9.1 All UGVs must be autonomous, weigh less than 40kg (including fuel). For reasons of safety, maximum vehicle speed will be limited to 10 km/hr

9.2 Communications between the operations team and their UVS may be by radio, infrared, acoustic or other means so long as they are considered safe by the Technical Assessment Panel (TAP). No umbilical links are permitted.

9.3 Any sort of propulsion for the UGVs is acceptable if the design is deemed safe by the TAP during the review process.

9.4 After considering an application organisers may direct safety improvements that must be made in order to compete in the challenge.

9.5 Each UGV must be equipped with a termination mechanism (“E-Stop”) that can be triggered remotely on a judge’s command.

9.6 Each UGV must be equipped with a “Freeze” (i.e. administrative stop) mechanism that can be triggered remotely on the judges’ command. Freezing a vehicle means stopping the vehicle and immediately disabling any contribution that the vehicle can make to its own or the operators’ overall situational awareness picture. The vehicle may continue to draw and generate power.

9.7 In the event of equipment failure, UGVs must be able to be easily and safely disabled mechanically and electrically by organisers so that they may be lifted and transported out of the challenge area using four-wheel push carts.

9.8 The perimeter of the challenge area will be designated by a series of waypoints provided to teams immediately before the challenge. Vehicles manoeuvring outside the designated challenge area or in an unsafe manner must be brought back under control or terminated on the command of the judges.

9.9 Teams must supply all of their own vehicles and infrastructure such as ground control stations, communications, etc. 240VAC ~50Hz power will be available on site.

9.10 Organisers will provide teams with passive RF tags for each vehicle. These will be used by judges for determining true vehicle position during the challenge. The location information will be used for adjudication, safety and spectator-display purposes. Any use of this ground truth information for navigation or other situational awareness tasks is strictly forbidden.

9.11 Teams must record the navigation and mapping solutions of their UGVs at 1 Hz and provide it to facilitators in the appropriate format in WGS84 coordinates. Gaps in any mapping information will be considered to be areas that were not properly explored. This information may be provided to judges at the end of each phase, in real time, with latency, or intermittently, as appropriate.

9.12 Teams must also provide an output feed for each operator display used during the challenge. These feeds will be used to capture and display the operator interface to the judges and spectators on organizer provided displays. This output feed should contain all content on the operator display in standard SVGA format.

9.13 All participants are asked to complete an Intention to Compete form and submit it to the organisers by Friday 4 September 2009, preferably or as soon as possible. This form is available at www.dsto.defence.gov.au/MAGIC2010/ and should be transmitted by email to [MAGIC2010@dsto.defence.gov.au]. Submission of the Intention to Compete is not a pre-requisite for application submission.

9.14 All teams must submit a completed MAGIC 2010 Application Form on or before 2 October 2009 electronically by e-mail [MAGIC2010@dsto.defence.gov.au]. The application form is available on this website: www.dsto.defence.gov.au/MAGIC2010/ . The exact requirements of the submission are detailed on the website, but include a DVD/video and a written description of their current research programs and a technical paper describing the vehicles, architecture, sensors, processing, testing plan, technical
specifications, supervision and task allocation strategies, etc.

9.15 Challenge finalists must submit a follow-on Technical Paper by 22 October 2010 describing the technical details of their proposal.

9.16 Teams must comply with all relevant national technology import/export policies. For Australia these are available from http://www.customs.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=4226

9.17 All communications with organisers and judges must be in English.