After three years of development in circuit competitions, roboticists, engineers, and technologists from 11 countries participated in the September 2021 final event of the DARPA Subterranean Challenge at the Louisville, Kentucky mega-cavern.
The teams innovated with novel approaches to rapidly map navigate and search underground environments during time-sensitive combat operations or disaster response scenarios.
The net impact of the challenge was to provide real-world testing for military and first responders of the new technologies and capabilities needed to more effectively execute future missions.