Paper ID: 2302.13230

Heterogeneous robot teams with unified perception and autonomy: How Team CSIRO Data61 tied for the top score at the DARPA Subterranean Challenge

Navinda Kottege, Jason Williams, Brendan Tidd, Fletcher Talbot, Ryan Steindl, Mark Cox, Dennis Frousheger, Thomas Hines, Alex Pitt, Benjamin Tam, Brett Wood, Lauren Hanson, Katrina Lo Surdo, Thomas Molnar, Matt Wildie, Kazys Stepanas, Gavin Catt, Lachlan Tychsen-Smith, Dean Penfold, Leslie Overs, Milad Ramezani, Kasra Khosoussi, Farid Kendoul, Glenn Wagner, Duncan Palmer, Jack Manderson, Corey Medek, Matthew O'Brien, Shengkang Chen, Ronald C. Arkin

The DARPA Subterranean Challenge was designed for competitors to develop and deploy teams of autonomous robots to explore difficult unknown underground environments. Categorised in to human-made tunnels, underground urban infrastructure and natural caves, each of these subdomains had many challenging elements for robot perception, locomotion, navigation and autonomy. These included degraded wireless communication, poor visibility due to smoke, narrow passages and doorways, clutter, uneven ground, slippery and loose terrain, stairs, ledges, overhangs, dripping water, and dynamic obstacles that move to block paths among others. In the Final Event of this challenge held in September 2021, the course consisted of all three subdomains. The task was for the robot team to perform a scavenger hunt for a number of pre-defined artefacts within a limited time frame. Only one human supervisor was allowed to communicate with the robots once they were in the course. Points were scored when accurate detections and their locations were communicated back to the scoring server. A total of 8 teams competed in the finals held at the Mega Cavern in Louisville, KY, USA. This article describes the systems deployed by Team CSIRO Data61 that tied for the top score and won second place at the event.

Submitted: Feb 26, 2023