As always, DARPA is on the bleeding edge of technological innovation and exploration (see this DARPA project list if you have any doubts). The Virtual Cave Circuit event of the Subterranean Challenge ran on livestream. Virtual robots autonomously explored virtual caves - check it out.
(DARPA's Virtual Caves Explored By Virtual Robots)
Expert commentary was provided by DARPA, and we were able to watch multiple teams running at once, skipping from highlight to highlight. It was really very well done, but they made us wait until the very end to learn who won: First place went to Coordinated Robotics, with BARCS taking second, and third place going to newcomer Team Dynamo.
A much quicker version of cave exploration (in this case, imagination fuels CGI) can be found in the 2012 movie Prometheus.
(From Prometheus [2012])
Coordinated Robotics is just Kevin Knoedler, all by himself. He also won NASA’s virtual Space Robotics Challenge by himself in 2017. Read IEEE Spectrum's interview with him at Coordinated Robotics Wins DARPA SubT Virtual Cave Circuit.
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