CANINE

The goal of the TARDEC CANINE competition was to develop a robotic platform capable of autonomously searching, identifying, and retrieving objects specified by an operator.

The general structure of the challenges was

1. Interact with the robot to communicate the challenge constraints
2. Show the object to the robot it needs to retrieve
3. Throw or place the object far from the robot
4. The robot searches and locates the object, avoiding objects with similar color or shape properties and human obstacles
5. The robot captures the object
6. The robot returns the object to a pre-specified location or operator’s current position

The video below shows our robot, Scotty, retrieving of one of the lighter, bouncier objects.

The final competition was held at Fort Benning in Georgia. Unfortunately, computers onboard the robotic suffered catastrophic failure presumably due to hot storage conditions in the lockdown area and we were unable to compete.