What Lies Beneath: Inside DARPA’s Subterranean Challenge

nationaldefensemagazine ^ | 7/29/2019 | Jon Harper

[BenLurkin]

DARPA’s Subterranean Challenge is trying to address those needs. It’s a multi-phase competition aimed at promoting robotics technologies that can traverse, navigate, map and search underground environments. It will feature three different circuits — tunnel, urban underground and cave — before culminating in the grand finale that combines elements of each.

For the competition, DARPA is interested in four technical areas: mobility, perception, autonomy and networking.

For the networking component, the agency is hoping to identify breakthroughs that will improve the way information is sent from where it originates to the operators who need it.

DARPA has been communicating with a variety of stakeholders, including the Army, Marine Corps, law enforcement and first responders to get their input.

The SubT Challenge aims to minimize the level of human involvement required so that personnel won’t have to be part of the first wave of forces entering a potentially hazardous subterranean environment in the future, he said.

Eleven teams — seven funded by DARPA and four self-funded — will compete in the first round, the tunnel circuit, which is slated for Aug. 15-22 at a defunct Pennsylvania mine.

Participants will come from as far away as Australia and Switzerland, and include top tier academic organizations such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology, as well as companies such as Sierra Nevada Corp. and Endeavor Robotics.

Manmade tunnels can be dry and dusty or wet and muddy, and include obstacles such as rails, doorways, gates and bulkheads... Urban undergrounds can include metro transit systems, storm drains and other challenging infrastructure such as stairs, escalators and elevators.

Caves, on the other hand... “a lot less predictable”...

DARPA wants the challenges to take place in areas that are multiple kilometers in scale with missions lasting an hour or more.

[ealgeone]

Battle Beneath the Earth (1967)

A Chinese general goes berserk and has a system of tunnels dug all the way from China to USA, under the Pacific Ocean! Wherever there is an important military base, he places atomic bombs. US Navy soldiers go underground to repel the invaders.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061387/

[BenLurkin]

cool!

[ealgeone]

And is it bad? Oh yes.

Saw it as a kid when they used to have the Saturday afternoon movie or something like that.

[Lurker]

C.H.U.D.

Not gonna end well.

L

[who_would_fardels_bear]

We can run, but we can’t hide.

[BenLurkin]

Bet you saw this one too:
The Bamboo Saucer (1968)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062704/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1

[wally_bert]

That should be a great Rifftracks movie like one mentioned above.

[wally_bert]

Try this Peter Graves gem

https://www.rifftrax.com/missile-x

[abb]

And then there’s this classic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mole_People

The Mole People is a 1956 American black-and-white science fiction horror film distributed by Universal International, which was produced by William Alland, directed by Virgil W. Vogel, and stars John Agar, Hugh Beaumont, and Cynthia Patrick.

Archaeologists Dr. Roger Bentley and Dr. Jud Bellamin find a race of Sumerian albinos living deep under the Earth.

[TXnMA]

I can recommend some sites in the US Virgin Islands and in NM as test sites -- and can even ID appropriate starting points...

TXnMA
  

[ealgeone]

I think I saw that one!