Nine teams to participate in DARPA’s STIX
Nine teams have qualified to take part in the SubT Integration Exercise (STIX) in preparation for the Circuits Stage of the SubT Challenge later in 2019, DARPA announced on 22 January.
The exercise will take place in April, where teams will attempt to remotely navigate the dark and dirty corridors of Edgar Experimental Mine in Idaho Springs. The STIX event will offer teams an opportunity to test their technologies, including robotics, sensors, and communications solutions, in a representative environment.
DARPA’s SubT Challenge seeks to improve how first responders and soldiers operate in the underground domain, including human-made tunnel systems, urban underground settings and natural cave networks that are too dangerous, dark, deep, and unknown to risk human lives.
Teams are competing to develop advanced technologies that rapidly and remotely map, navigate and search subterranean environments.
The SubT Challenge comprises two competitions – the systems competition, where teams will develop new hardware solutions to compete in physical underground environments, and the Virtual Competition, where teams will develop software-based solutions to test in simulated scenarios.
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