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In less than a decade robots have revolutionised the way wars are fought. Lethal Predator planes are flown on air raids over Afghanistan from office chairs in the United States. There are tens of thousands of unmanned vehicles in action.

Dr Jim Overholt

We give these to these eighteen and nineteen year old soldiers, they've grown up now in the last ten years with having game systems and they immediately know how to handle the robotics.

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But each robot still needs to be remotely controlled by at least one person.

Steve Quinn

One man, one robot. We want to change that paradigm and move to one man, many robots.

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Now the next generation of these robots is on the march. They'll be put to the test by a unique competition. At stake are millions of dollars in prize money.

Mark Horstman

What you're seeing is a team of robots working together autonomously that is, without human help to map an area and track moving targets. Now, if you're a robot, there are at least three things you need. The first is to be able to sense, in this case primary colours, which is why I'm wearing camouflage. Secondly, you need to be able to think and make decisions, using your onboard computers. And finally, you need to be able to act , to respond to your changing environment and know exactly where you are.

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Put all that together and make it work, and you're at the cutting edge of robotics where groups of robots cooperate to carry out complex tasks without human intervention.

Tony Tether

It's really like the beginning of the space race in the United States. We're showing that autonomy at this level can be done. And once people understand that, that it can be done, it is amazing the progress that takes place.

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MAGIC2010 is the world's first competition for autonomous robots, organised jointly by the US and Australian Departments of Defence.

A secret military operation has taken over the Adelaide showgrounds. Curious locals who manage to breach security are ushered away to safety. Stables and pavilions are now an urban combat zone, where danger lurks around any corner. Robots have a three hour time limit to navigate themselves around the course. If they get too close to an enemy, they die.

Mark Horstman

The challenge is for a team of robots to work together and map an unfamiliar area, and identify the enemy in this case, objects coloured red. And right now, this robot is tracking me.

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There are five teams competing. One is from Australia, one from Turkey, and three from the United States.

Alberto Lacaze

Our team is a little bit more corporate-centred.

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Team RASR has thousands of robotic platforms already in use by the US Army for bomb disposal in Iraq.

Alberto Lacaze

We have to basically not only win the competition but we have to have a product at the end of this.

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Well you've already got them on the battlefield. You must be confident about this competition?

Alberto Lacaze

Ah we like to think so.

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To make a remotely-controlled robot autonomous, Alberto's team added laser sensors, computer processors, wi-fi communications, and cameras.

Alberto Lacaze

There are three cameras you can see here, one here, and one on this other side. We put the three images together and we create a three hundred and sixty degree field of view.

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As well as the cameras is a LIDAR, which uses laser light to map the surroundings, just as radar uses radio waves.

Alberto Lacaze

It's using GPS as well as its own internal navigation unit and that tells where the vehicle is located so it can create generate the map.

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It's high noon in the dusty streets of Showground Town. The robots have to negotiate a maze; rapidly map an uncharted area of 25 hectares and locate the red enemies, both static and mobile, all while staying out of harm's way. The further they venture into the course, the harder it gets. Their human operators are penalised each time they step in to help the robots out and the Turkish team has run into problems. Likewise, the Australian team doesn't get as far as they hoped.

Dr Adrian Boeing

We had a bit of a problem with the GPS feed so the maps would spring around and wouldn't quite line up. That took quite some time and then we'd run out of batteries and we could only take the robots for a short drive before it was unfortunately all over.

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For autonomy to work, the robots need to build and share a unified map that the humans can trust. It seems the American teams have really cracked this problem, as their robots move purposefully around the course. They may look more Wall-E than warlike, but could these robots from Michigan University have the edge?

Assoc Prof Edwin Olson

We do a lot of work on trying to rapidly move the whole problem to software because we're computer science people. It's a laptop on wheels.

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Their fourteen robots are not built to be all-terrain vehicles. It's their software that counts.

Assoc Prof Edwin Olson

They're basically dividing up the world into small pieces, assigning those pieces to individual robots and then the robots wander off and start executing that piece.

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And incredibly, they navigate their new world without any GPS. Branded with a barcode on each side, the robots can recognise each other and figure out their relative positions.

Assoc Prof Edwin Olson

They're building up these 3D models of the world with their LIDAR. And they can share their maps and say hey I saw a building over here that had a right angle corner and the other ones says I see the same thing. Right? And then they can line those up. And by sort of lining up pieces of their map, they build a global map that's coherent.

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By sharing information, the swarm is smarter than the individual and within a few minutes, they find their target.

Mark Horstman

That's the enemy as far as this robot's concerned. Has it found it all by itself or using information from the rest of its team?

Assoc Prof Edwin Olson

So a little bit of both. Another sensor robot found it originally. It's not allowed to do anything about it so it told this robot that there's something over here. This robot drove over here autonomously and then found that same object again. So it's actually shining a laser at it. There's a bright point right there. So it's found the object, it's rotated its camera head to point right at it and turned on its laser pointer and that's sort of the proof that we use in the competition to show that yes I really found it.

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It's a convincing demonstration that large groups of robots can work autonomously, but it's still a long way from a battlefield or a mine rescue.

Steve Quinn

That's the driving force behind it. Anything that can protect the forces, anything that can protect our emergency services, if this can contribute to it in a number of years time, it'll be a bonus and make it all worthwhile.

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But the organisers already regard a robot like a soldier on a mission to keep his mates safe.

Tony Tether

His main purpose is to get shot at because if he's shot at then we know there's enemy in there. But to do this all on its own and come back.

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As a robot, should he have the capacity to shoot back?

Tony Tether

Ah I don't really think so. I think that there should be a human being that has its finger on the trigger.

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In the end, one team completes more of the course in the shortest time, with less human help and loss of robot lives. And the winner is Team Michigan! First prize of $750,000 is one thing, but these young scientists have also got the attention of those who equip modern armies.

Dr Malcom O'Neill

I'll be very interested in their careers, where they go to work, for whom they go to work, because I want this stuff to be tapped for the United States Army, and hopefully the Australian Army too.

Assoc Prof Edwin Olson

I think the contest really demonstrated that we can build a team of robots that will work together, share information, coordinate their plans, and be able to do reconnaissance and search-and-rescue type missions.