On the small table allocated to them, Alphonse Mendy, Achille Tsakas, Antoine Bruxelle, Aymeric Kwan and Adrien Schroeyers, five apprentice engineers in mechatronics (a discipline straddling mechanics, electronics and computer science) at the university of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, are busy. Among all the other Robocup participants, gathered side by side in hall 1 of the Bordeaux Exhibition Center, we tweak the wires, add the latest cameras and “debug” the robot so that it is the most efficient as possible.
From July 6 to 10, 2,000 robotics enthusiasts from 45 countries come to compete with their robots in several series of tests. If the best known is the football competition, a kind of World Cup between robots, the Robocup also organizes championships in the sector of industry, the realization of daily tasks and rescue. It is in the latter that the students were selected.
These five Ile-de-France residents, aged 21 and 26, all caught the robotics virus when they started creating their little robots in their second year of study. “Initially, we did it for fun, but we quickly realized that it was our passion, what we wanted to do with our lives,” says Achille.
Rescue is what they call a crawler robot or tank robot. If, at first sight, it can be scary with its red LEDs and its mini-tank looks, this machine is there to save us. “He is able to go into complex, winding situations, like areas that have suffered an earthquake, with different rubble and relief, for example,” explains Alphonse. Several technologies are embedded on this small robot 60 centimeters wide and 70 centimeters long.
Among them, four cameras make it possible to observe the environment in detail and Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) or infrared sensors, make it possible to add a remote measurement technique. “The goal is to observe the environment with as many sensors as possible,” adds Achille. Another strength of the robot is its remote-controlled arm, equipped with a camera and a gripper at the end, which allows it to access “small slots and areas inaccessible to humans”.
But is there artificial intelligence in this robot? No, explain the students, Rescue is placed in a risk area and it is remotely operated with a controller or a computer from a control center. “It also has a differential mode which allows it to autonomously explore a smooth environment, such as a house, but if there is a change in terrain, as is often the case in rough areas, you activate the manual mode, we add tracks, and we remote control it”.
Moreover, Achille is sure, putting AI at all costs in rescue robots can involve risks. “We master from A to Z the rules on which our robot is based since these are only algorithms that we have written, explains Achille. A robot that learns on its own with an AI can make bad decisions… It all depends on the contexts, for household robotics, for example, no problem, but in the rescue and security sector, it can do damage: a simple loss of connection which would lead it to fall into a hole, to a controlled arm which can deviate from its trajectory or even a robot which runs over someone, because it programmed a bad command at the level of the wheels. »
In the midst of all their competitors, the only French team in the category does not put pressure on itself. “We know we’re small in the middle of big fish,” jokes Achille. We are surrounded by teams with robots that cost up to 100,000 euros, while ours is under 10,000 euros. Some competitors are sponsored by behemoths, like Boston Dynamics with their dog robots, and they only have to create the program, whereas we started from scratch. »
To sum up their project, the young roboticists define Rescue as “a robot of five passionate young people who want to attack the world of adults”. Moreover, if it has not yet made a real situation for the moment, it is time for the machine to cross one of the installations built for the occasion in order to measure itself to others.
Among the tests, stairs, rocky areas, gravel, sand, objects to detect and car trunks to inspect, faces to recognize… And even a very dark place where each robot must, independently, succeed in navigate independently, map the space and transmit the information collected.
The quintet has no illusions, he knows that a priori, he will not win this competition, but “there are still a lot of things to invent in the military and rescue sector, projects Achille. Robots have enormous potential in assisting people in danger, during earthquakes, burning or radioactive areas… As on Mars or the Moon, this avoids putting humans in risky situations. And, for us, taking part in these competitions means taking part today in these revolutions of the future. »
