#humanoid technology

DARPA's Pet-Proto, a predecessor to DARPA's Atlas robot, is now able to make judgements and decisions in approaching challenging terrain such as stairs, high ledges, and pits. To maneuver over and around the obstacles, the robot exercises capabilities including autonomous decision-making, dismounted mobility and dexterity. It is being developed for the DARPA Robotics Challenge, which will test these and other capabilities in a series of tasks that will simulate conditions in a dangerous, degraded, human-engineered environment. Teams participating in Tracks B and C of the DRC will compete for access to a modified version of the Atlas robot for use in the 2013 and 2014 live disaster-response challenge events.