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August 4, 2017Two Brains, A Computer, And Lots Of Coffee: How A Pair Of GE Engineers Took NASA By Storm
Article courtesy of Bruce Watson. The full article can be found here.
Imagine a storm whipping across the Martian desert, blasting everything in its path. When the wind dies down, a robot slowly ventures out of a habitat station and into the dusty aftermath, picking its way around rocks and debris. It assembles a solar panel and adjusts an antenna, providing energy to the station and strengthening its connection to Earth. Then it heads back inside where it detects a leak and patches it, making the room safe for human inhabitants.
The scenario may sound like science fiction, but humans are getting closer to visiting the red planet. When they arrive, they will likely leave behind robots to take care of business while they are away. That’s why NASA’s recent Space Robotics Challenge asked programmers to develop the best method for controlling one of NASA’s R5 Valkyrie robots from 140 million miles away. A humanoid robot designed to function in environments that would be deadly to humans, the R5 Valkyrie is sleek, white and armored in plastic.
While the stakes of NASA’s contest weren’t quite life and death, they were still high: The winners would receive $1 million in prizes, the chance to work with actual Valkyrie robots and some fairly stellar bragging rights.
The competition attracted 405 teams from 55 countries, including groups from some of the world’s top engineering schools. Some teams had dozens of members and thousands of dollars to spend, but — in the end — the strongest competitors were some of the leanest. The winner, Coordinated Robotics, was a one-man team from Newbury Park, California. Second place went to Walk Softly, a pair of GE engineers from upstate New York.
Walk Softly’s team leader was Steven Gray, a lead robotics engineer at GE Global Research in Niskayuna, New York. The name is a play on Teddy Roosevelt’s famous exhortation to “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” In this case, the “big stick” was the team’s years of experience working with robots. As for speaking softly, the team, which included Gray’s coworker Shiraj Sen, kept a low profile on the competition’s forums, choosing not to boast about their approach.
But Walk Softly’s silence concealed a furious determination. Before moving to GE in May 2016, Gray competed in the high-profile DARPA Robotics Challenge, where competitors tried to create robots that could function in environments that would be deadly to humans. His team didn’t place. “I wasn’t thrilled with that,” he recalls, noting that, when the NASA contest was announced, he felt like it was a chance to try again.
To read the full article click here: http://www.ge.com/reports/two-brains-computer-lots-coffee-pair-ge-engineers-took-nasa-storm/
