The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is an agency within the U.S. Defense Department. And here, it asks internet users to suggest it an underground facility for its next research lab.
In a statement, Jared B. Adams, DARPA's chief of communications, explained that the research agency has hosted a subterranean competition, called the SubT Challenge Urban Circuit, in which teams from around the world can test out "new approaches to rapidly map, navigate, and search underground environments."
The competitors completed the first round, the Tunnel Circuit.
"With them, they brought 20 unmanned aerial vehicles, 64 ground robots, and one autonomous blimp robot named Duckiefloat," Adams said.
And DARPA in seeking underground tunnels and passageways, is to help it commence the challenge's next stage.
The ideal space would be a human-made underground environment spanning several city blocks w/ complex layout & multiple stories, including atriums, tunnels & stairwells. Spaces
that are currently closed off from pedestrians or can be temporarily used for testing are of
interest. pic.twitter.com/GkWKm2w2p9— DARPA (@DARPA) August 28, 2019
"Complex urban underground infrastructure can present significant challenges for situational awareness in time-sensitive scenarios, such as active combat operations or disaster response," explained Adams, adding that the agency took the matter to Twitter to "help identify potential representative environments where teams may be able to test in advance of the upcoming event."
Explaining about the second stage of the competition, Adams said that: "There are three preliminary circuit events and a final integrated challenge course pursuing high-risk and high-reward approaches. The final event, planned for 2021, will put teams to the test with courses that incorporate diverse challenges from all three environments (tunnel, urban, and cave)."
The request for "university-owned or commercially managed underground urban tunnels and facilities" was actually made a week before.
But because the agency didn't get a lot of submission, this is why it's ramping up the effort by asking the internet.
In the past, DARPA has funded many projects that provided significant technologies advancements.
For the military, DARPA has helped the developments of sensors, surveillance systems, aircraft-related programs, directed energy R&D, particularly in the study of radar, infrared sensing, and x-ray/gamma ray detection.
And as for non-military, DARPA was involved in projects behind computer networking, the basis for the modern internet, the graphical user interfaces in information technology and others.
The SubT Challenge here, is aimed at helping soldiers and first responders to navigate tight and uncharted spaces more quickly.
"The hazards vary drastically across domains that can degrade or change over time and are often too high-risk for personnel to enter," said DARPA on the SubT Challenge's website.
The challenge seeks novel approaches to rapidly map, navigate, and search underground environments during time-sensitive combat operations or disaster response scenarios.
The agency ran one SubT experiment in April at the Edgar Experimental Mine in Colorado, then another at two mines in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
But this is where it noted that urban locations present their own challenges, as the reason why it needs to find a subterranean facility to help with this project.
Finding one huge subterranean facility that spans several city blocks with complex layout and multiple stories is certainly difficult, and this posed a challenge for the agency.
The SubT Challenge lists cave systems as its third type of underground environment.
