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MAGIC 2010: Super-smart robots wanted for international challenge

MAGIC 2010

An international panel of judges will verify compliance with all rules.

Teams must provide the navigation and mapping solutions of their UGVs as well as the identity and locations of all OOI at the end of each phase. This information may be provided in real time, with latency, or intermittently, as appropriate, although real time at an update rate of approximately 1 Hz or faster is preferred and rewarded.

To complete the challenge the judges must consider that a team:
a. Has accurately and completely explored and mapped each phase area
b. Correctly located, classified, recognised and neutralised** all OOI, and
c. Achieved the above within a total time of 3 hours 30 minutes.

Teams will be awarded a maximum of 800 points for their challenge operations and a further 200 points for their technical submission and presentations to judges, making a total possible score of 1,000 points.

The challenge operations will be judged against three over-arching sets of criteria: mission level, systems level and technical success. Broadly, high levels of individual and collaborative autonomy will be rewarded and human intervention penalised. Also, the degree to which the UGV cooperative is able to share the workload successfully will be rewarded (i.e. a cooperative of 10 UGVs each mapping 10% of the area will score more points than one in which one UGV maps 90% of the area).

At a mission level, criteria such as the percentage of targets correctly and incorrectly detected, located, recognised, and neutralised**, the percentage of phase area explored and mapped, and the accuracy and timeliness with which this is achieved will be used. Teams will receive a maximum of 400 points for their mission level assessment. Greater weight will be placed on the later phases, which will be more complex.

At a systems level, criteria such as the number of UGVs handled by teams, the workload experienced by teams, the human-machine interface, the amount of time spent interacting with the cooperative, the number and nature of these interventions, and the degree to which UGVs autonomously and successfully share and coordinate their various activities will be used. Teams will receive a maximum of 300 points for their systems level assessment.

At a technical level, criteria such as the robustness, reliability and survivability of a team’s UGVs, the capacity of the UGVs to autonomously plan, re-plan, and then execute their tasks against dynamically changing priorities, and the navigation and mobility capabilities of the individual UGVs will be used. Teams will receive a maximum of 100 points for their systems level assessment.

In the event that no team achieves adequate performance the cash awards may not be made. However, the judges may also present non-monetary awards for: innovation, best individual UGV performance and best multi-UGV coordination strategy.

15.1 Final Technical Paper and Presentation – 2010

All teams down selected to compete in the challenge must also submit a detailed technical paper by 22 October 2010 [Max 25 pages]. This paper will serve as an outline for the technical presentations given by each team the evening prior to their demonstration and should describe the detailed technical approach of their solution.

Judges will be anticipating this paper and the presentation to cover all of the sections above (see Initial Submissions and Technical Presentations).

A maximum of 200 points will be awarded for the technical paper and final presentation and should be framed such that a reader can understand the team’s entire approach/design without having seen previous papers or designs.

Based on a team’s technical presentation judges may award 100 points for:

• Overall format, completeness and readability/clarity (10 points)
• Innovation and elegance of overall technical solution (35 points)
• Mission strategy, vehicle-operator ratio and user workload (25 points)
• Craftsmanship, durability, portability of UGVs (10 points)
• Systems integration and testing (20 points)

The Final Technical paper should include [Max 25 pages]

• Abstract
• Introduction
• Statement of the problem
• Conceptual solution proposed
• Overall systems architecture
• Ground vehicle component & systems
• UVS autonomy & coordination strategy (by task)
• Sensors, processing & mapping for UGVs
• Operations in GPS-denied environments
• Processing & fusion (from the simulated UAV feed)
• Situational awareness tools
• Human-machine interface
• Mission operations strategy
• Risk reduction strategy
• EMI/RFI & electrical
• Vibration & physical
• Modelling & Simulation
• Safety, E-stop, Freeze & lost link
• Communications architecture
• Spectrum plan & usage
• Test plan
• Summary
• Page

All papers submitted in October 2010 will be published on the website and as part of the Proceedings of the Land Warfare Conference and potentially in a special issue of an archival robotics journal.

** Please note: Neutralise - does not imply weaponise