DARPA announced on Wednesday 10th the rules for the final event, see Final Event Competition Rules (pdf). All teams have to qualify and the requirements are stronger, so see also new Qualification Guilde (pdf). Note, that there is not much time left — The Systems Competition qualification deadline is April 21, 2021 and the Virtual Competition qualification deadline is June 29, 2021.

So what is new? The robots have to be able to recognize 10 types of artifacts: 3 common (Survivor, Backpack, Phone), from tunnel (Fire Extenquisher, Drill), from urban (Gas, Vent) and from cave (Rope, Helmet). Moreover there will be 10th, so far unknown, artifact type. In order to qualify at least one robot has to demonstrate autonomous detection of all types of artifacts!

For the System there will be two Preliminary Rounds, each 30 minutes long. There will be 20 artifacts but teams will have only 25 reports. Only six best teams will compete in the finals. There the limit is going to be 60 minutes and number of artifact 40 with 45 allowed report attempts.

The Final Event of the Virtual Competition will consist of a Preliminary Round and a Prize Round each with a separate solution submission window. The submissions to the Preliminary Round will be evaluated and the resultsare expected to be announced the week of August 9-13, 2021. The top 10 teams from the Preliminary Round will be invited to submit solutions to the Prize Round to compete for monetary prizes. The results and winners of the Prize Round will be announced at the Final Event being held September 21-23, 2021.

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