A robot competition to be hosted by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will involve 25 competing teams from all over the globe competing to determine which will be able to build a better robot for responding to disasters or calamities.

Eleven teams were previously selected and will now be joined by 14 new teams from the U.S., Japan, Hong Kong, China, South Korea, Germany and Italy. The contest will be held in Pomona, California.

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Competition organizers say the robots will go through a series of simulated disaster rescue situations. The robots will be tested by traversing obstacles, prying open doors, activating emergency shutoff switches and operating rescue vehicles when the environment is too risky or dangerous for humans.

DARPA Robotics Challenge program manager Gill Pratt said the agency is trying to make this contest more authentic by simulating how a real disaster could turn out. He says testing the robots' abilities is a great opportunity to gauge their skills in assisting humans by performing challenging tasks that can endanger people.

Pratt explains robots are skillful when it comes to working in hazardous environments but humans are very good at making judgment calls.

The competition is scheduled for June 5 and 6. The robots and their human engineering teams are vying to win three cash prizes that total US$3.5 million. The grand prize winner will get US$2 million.

The robots' goal is to guide a vehicle through a simulated disaster area. It must exit the vehicle without any human guidance and enter a building, avoiding any debris along rough terrain. Once the robots are in the building, their tasks involve turning off an emergency valve and reconnecting some wires.

The robots will also use tools to make a hole in a wall that will give them access to a stairway they need to climb to exit the building. There will also be an unannounced surprise mission that robots and teams will face.

Points will be awarded to teams for every task they accomplish. Teams will be judged according to how fast they complete the task in under one hour.

Tags25 Robots Compete for DARPA Robotic Challenge 2015 $2 Million Prize, Robots, DARPA, DARPA robotic challenge 2015, robot competition, US