It's MAGIC: Aussie war robot photos

An Australian team has recently demonstrated its robotics "wizardry" by advancing to the grand finals of an international land warfare robot competition to be held in South Australia in November.

By Colin Ho on Aug. 2, 2010

1 of 4 MAGICIAN and the Australian DSTO

The competition, known as the Multi-Autonomous Ground-robotics International Challenge (MAGIC), was a joint initiative by Australia's Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) and the US Department of Defense.

The Western Australia-based team, dubbed MAGICIAN, will be Australia's sole representative in the grand final. The United States will be sending a total of three teams to the competition, while Japan and Turkey will both be sending one team.

Earlier this year, 23 robotics teams from around the world (four from Australia) competed in the initial stages of the competition.

2 of 4 MAGICIAN and the Australian DSTO

In the semi-finals 12 competitors were whittled down to six to compete in the grand final.

According to the announcement, the results from the final challenge will be announced in mid-November.

In this challenge, MAGICIAN's robot will map, seek and "destroy" objects of interest. Currently, the six finalists have been granted $50,000 to fine-tune their robot.

"They now have a few more months to fine-tune their concepts for the grand final challenge, where they will be required to field at least three robots and accomplish a complex task involving mapping and identification of threats while demonstrating a high level of autonomy between the robots," Australia's acting chief defence scientist Dr Warren Harch said in a statement last week.

"We want to move from the current paradigm of one man, one robot to one man and many robots."

3 of 4 MAGICIAN and the Australian DSTO

According to Harch, performance matters when you are a robot completing military exercises.

"The six successful teams displayed high levels of innovation and dexterity in completing their assigned tasks," Harch said.

4 of 4 MAGICIAN and the Australian DSTO

This competition could be a step in putting robots into "real" combat situations around the world.

"MAGIC aims to develop fully autonomous robots capable of conducting dangerous missions and keeping soldiers out of harm's way," Greg Combet, minister for Defence Materiel and Science, said in June this year.

"I congratulate all the finalists and wish them well for the MAGIC Grand Challenge in Australia," said Harch.

The finalists are Cappadocia (Turkey), Chiba (Japan), MAGICIAN (Australia), RASR (USA), Team Michigan (USA) and University of Pennsylvania (USA).

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