euRathlon and ERL Emergency: A Multi-domain Multi-robot Grand Challenge for Search and Rescue Robots

Abstract

In this paper we outline the euRathlon 2015 and the ERL Emergency 2017 Grand Challenge robotics competitions, and the results and lessons learned from euRathlon 2015. Staged at Piombino, Italy in September 2015, euRathlon 2015 was the world’s first multi-domain (air, land and sea) multi-robot search and rescue competition. In a mock disaster scenario inspired by the 2011 Fukushima NPP accident the euRathlon 2015 Grand Challenge required teams of robots to cooperate to map the area, and missing workers and stem a leak. The second edition of the competition will be held also in Piombino in September 2017, under the name of ERL Emergency and as part of the new European Robotics League initiative.