Michigan engineering students are finalists for MAGIC prize
July 31, 2010
The U-M contingent of robots exchange information and work together to map an outdoor area on North Campus during their evaluation by MAGIC officials. Credit: Steve Crang, U-M Computer Science and Engineering.
A team of more than 20 University of Michigan engineering students led by Edwin Olson, an assistant professor of computer science and engineering, has been selected as one of six finalists in the 2010 Multi Autonomous Ground-Robotic International Challenge (MAGIC). MAGIC competitors develop multivehicle robotic teams able to execute intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions in an unknown urban environment with little or no human supervision.
Another student team, U-M Autonomy, took first place at the 3rd International Autonomous Surface Vehicle Competition (ASVC) conducted by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International and the Office of Naval Research in June 2010. The ASVC is a student robotics competition in which teams race ASVs of their own design through an aquatic obstacle course.
Michigan Engineering faculty and students across the college are conducting innovative multidisciplinary robotics research. A YouTube video of a robot named MABEL's first steps over rough terrain has been watched more than 150,000 times. MABEL, born in the lab of electrical engineering professor Jessy Grizzle, is a bipedal robot with a human-like gait. Grizzle presented research on MABEL at MIT's Dynamic Walking 2010 meeting in Boston on July 8. Others are designing unmanned vehicles for air, sea and ground.
At the Ground Robotics Reliability Center (GRRC), engineers are working to help establish Southeastern Michigan as a center of activity for these emerging new technologies through supporting programs in research and education.