DARwIn is a fully autonomous humanoid robot capable of bipedal walking and performing human like motions. Developed at the Robotics & Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa) at Virginia Tech, DARwIn is a research platform for studying robot locomotion and autonomous behaviors, and also the base platform for Virginia Tech’s entry to the RoboCup competition. DARwIn IIIx, the latest in the DARwIn series robots, uses technologies developed for Team VictorTango’s DARPA Urban Challenge entry “Odin,” a fully autonomous vehicle that can drive in the urban environment. At first glance, these two real-world robotic applications (DARPA Urban Challenge & RoboCup) are extremely different. The Urban Challenge is concerned with building a full-sized autonomous ground vehicle capable of driving in an urban environment. RoboCup, on the other hand, is focused on creating a team of fully-autonomous humanoid robots capable of playing soccer. In both of these landmark challenges, however, the core problem of a behavioral control structure is the same. Both robots must somehow balance dynamically changing desires while trying to achieve mission objectives in a real and unpredictable environment. Developed by team leader Jesse Hurdus, both robotic platforms use a novel formulation of a Hierarchical State Machine (HSM) for providing contextual intelligence within a behavioral agent.
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