The DARPA Subterranean Challenge: The Cave Circuit

https://george.news | https://todaysmilitary.com/futures | Ten teams arrived to Satsop Business Park in Elma, Washington, to compete in the Systems competition Feb. 18-27, 2020. Eight teams qualified to participate in the Virtual competition, which ran Jan. 23-30. Two teams participated in both Virtual and Systems events.

The DARPA Subterranean Challenge seeks to better equip warfighters and first responders to explore human-made tunnel systems, urban underground, and natural cave networks, while decreasing risk to human lives. The SubT Challenge Systems and Virtual competitions aim to create a community of multidisciplinary teams from wide-ranging fields to foster breakthrough technologies in autonomy, perception, networking, and mobility for underground environments. The Tunnel Circuit took place in August 2019. The Cave Circuit is planned for August 2020, and the Final Event incorporating all three underground environments is targeted for August 2021.