DARPA DRC Trials

The DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) is a competition sponsored by DARPA to encourage rapid, innovative development in the field of humanoid robotics. Modlab participated with Penn as a part of Team THOR and Dr. Lee’s lab, in an alliance with Virginia Tech, Robotis Inc, and Harris Corp. The Trials were held from Dec 20-21, 2013, with sixteen teams each providing a robot to complete eight tasks designed to simulate disaster recovery scenarios.

Little Robots to move Big Things

The Little Robots to move Big Things project is motivated by the paradigm in modern robotics that most robots are incapable of manipulating objects that are even a small proportion of the robot’s mass. This project seeks to overturn this trend by using small robots to create large forces by leveraging the reaction forces created through interactions with fixed objects in the workspace.

Tactically Expandable Maritime Platform (T.E.M.P.)

We have built a system of shipping container sized robotic boats that can hook onto each other.  We demonstrate the conceptual design of a system that is capable of constructing bridges and various shaped islands that can be made compliant to waves.