About RoboCup Rescue

The motivation behind the RoboCupRescue robot league

A typical application for such a robot is a building in danger of collapsing after an earthquake. In this case the robot can search for and locate victims or sources of danger for rescue organisations. A robot developed and built for the Rescue-League should enable rescue organisations a safe operation and the possibility to prepare for any dangers.

What is the RoboCupRescue robot league?

The RoboCupRescue robot league is an international competition with the goal of developing, researching and demonstrating the usability of robots in rescue operations. There are two leagues:

  • The purpose of the simulation-league is to exercise the coordination of rescue units in a desolate town
  • In the robot-league mobile rescue robots have to search for survivors in premade rooms and arenas either independently or controlled by a tele operator.

Each year around 2000 developers, scientists and students from around the world meet to compete against each other in teams. During the competitions a congress also takes place, to share new knowledge from the areas of artificial intelligence and robotics.

The arenas of RoboCup Rescue:

Each participating team has to navigate it’s robot through diversified terrain, which is split in three arenas. Each one is marked by a different color ranging from yellow to orange to red, identifying the area’s difficulty.

arena yellow arena orange arena red
RoboCup 2015 in Magdeburg

The victims/survivors placed in the arenas

The victims are represented by dolls, which the robots have to recognise with the help of different sensors:

  • visual detection
  • acoustic detection
  • carbon-dioxide emission
  • thermic detection

A further requirement is to be able to scan QR-codes, which are placed around the arena.