Hollywood Reporter<\/a>. Le said being qualified to compete in the tournament is an exclusive opportunity.<\/p>\n\u201cThere are only 50 or 60 robots in the world that are qualified to compete in that league, and we\u2019re currently the only university team that\u2019s competing,\u201d Le said. \u201cSo we\u2019re very proud.\u201d <\/p>\n
USC ARC has performed in previous competitions at the National Havoc Robot League. The team placed within the top five competitors in both regional and national competitions. But ARC\u2019s work has become bigger than serving Le\u2019s BattleBots ambitions; the team is doing groundbreaking research in the area of robotic artificial intelligence. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re training AI to drive a killing robot. We\u2019re pushing the boundary on what can be done with robotics,\u201d Le said. \u201cWe\u2019re building this robot to destroy other robots, but we\u2019ve also had to solve a lot of other engineering problems that are beyond us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Le said combat robots are usually operated remotely, so a large part of winning the game is having an experienced driver. Le said the ARC team determined an AI system would drive more efficiently than a student driver, but the team understands the necessary precautions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m completely aware that having a computer control a death robot with no way of stopping it is a terrible idea,\u201d Le said.<\/p>\n
He noted that the team prioritizes safety by overriding the system and controlling the robot to prevent any foreseeable danger. Le also said they do not foresee the robot being used for dangerous purposes outside of competitions, but that it can help develop AI driving skills.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re not going to see this technology uploaded to defense drones anytime soon. We don\u2019t want to develop that kind of technology,\u201d Le said. \u201cBut in terms of robotic locomotion, we\u2019re making significant breakthroughs because our robot has to learn how to drive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Le said the technology also allows Nemesis to learn how to respond and adapt if it breaks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat can be applied to other robots, not just battle bots, to make them more robust in really challenging environments, and to make them more reliable and safer in the long run,\u201d Le said.<\/p>\n
Nemesis has three neural nets, which serve as artificial brains controlling its motion. Two of them are for seeing its opponent and determining its location in the arena, and the third is for driving toward and attacking the opponent. <\/p>\n
Maddoc Shannon, a junior majoring in mechanical engineering, is the president of ARC. Shannon said Nemesis\u2019 main weapon is a blade made out of AR 500 steel that spins at 250 miles an hour. Called a hammer saw, the device is meant to hit the opponent\u2019s weak spot on top, and then to remove their electronics. <\/p>\n
Shannon said the team has been working on Nemesis for the past year and received funding from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and the Viterbi Aerospace Mechanical Engineering Department, as well as funding from outside donors. Shannon said the budget for Nemesis was $40,000 to $50,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have an incredibly powerful machine,\u201d Shannon said. \u201cWhether or not we can get it to be reliable is another question that we\u2019ll have to see once we fight more, but at least, with the hardware that we have, it is going to be very competitive.\u201d <\/p>\n
If a team in the competition loses its first fight, they have 20 minutes to repair it before a rematch takes place. If their robot loses two fights, the team is eliminated from the competition. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe may get beat up, and we may come out of it thinking, \u2018Okay, we wasted this whole year,\u2019\u201d Le said. \u201cI know we\u2019re gonna put it back together, and we\u2019re gonna go back in that arena, and eventually we\u2019re gonna win, and it\u2019s gonna be the best time of our lives.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The USC Advanced Robotic Combat Design Team revealed its latest battle bot Tuesday. \u201cNemesis,\u201d a 250-lb. robot, is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[2007,120458,2172,48,52,51,47,50,49,30486,120457,120459],"class_list":{"0":"post-279621","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-combat-robots","10":"tag-engineering","11":"tag-la","12":"tag-la-headlines","13":"tag-la-news","14":"tag-los-angeles","15":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","16":"tag-los-angeles-news","17":"tag-robot","18":"tag-usc-robotic-combat-team","19":"tag-usc-viterbi"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}