Torre del Sale, Piombino, was the location chosen for simulating the euRathlon’s Fukushima-like disaster. Photo Credit: euRathlon

Inspired by the 2011 Fukushima accident, the euRathlon competition is the first outdoor competition where teams of land, sea and air robots must cooperate in a realistic disaster-response scenario. Following participation in the trials and sub-challenges, six multi-domain teams attempted the Grand Challenge, where they were required to locate missing workers, map a building and identify critical hazards, and inspect land and underwater pipes and stem a leak, all within 100 minutes. Watch the Grand Challenge video recaps and find out the winning teams …

An example ‘Object of Potential Interest’, or OPI, the unblocked entrance was represented by a green rectangle. Photo credit: Joshua Davidson

ENSTA Bretagne Team 1 looking under water for a possible missing worker. Photo credit: euRathlon

The Grand Challenge

The seven partners of euRathlon consortium worked together for more than two years to design this unique disaster-response scenario, which comprised three realistic mission goals:

• Mission-A: Search for missing workers – Robots had to search for two missing workers represented by mannequins dressed in orange suits, which could be inside the building, outside the building, floating on the sea surface near the coast, or trapped underwater. Teams received bonus points if a worker was found during the first 30 minutes of the Grand Challenge, because in a real scenario the probability of finding a missing person alive decreases rapidly with time.
• Mission-B: Reconnaissance and environmental survey of a building – Robots had to inspect a building to evaluate damage (represented by markers) and find a safe path to a machine room where valves were located. This required robots to reconnoitre the area, create a map of the building and the outdoor area surrounding it, and locate there the objects of potential interest (OPIs) in order to provide situational awareness to the team.
• Mission-C: Pipe inspection and stemming a leak – Robots had to localise four pipe sections on land, localize another four matching pipes underwater, look for damage to the land pipes and identify a contaminant leak (represented by a marker), reach the valves in the machine room and underwater, and close the correct valves in a synchronised process.

Schematic representation of the distribution of piping sections and valves and their correspondence. Credit: euRathlon

Example of pipe distribution. Source: Google Maps.

The Grand Challenge was successfully met if all the three missions were accomplished within 100 minutes. Strategy was important, as teams were given significant leeway:

• Teams were free to tackle the mission goals in parallel or in sequence, and to choose the order.
• Teams were free to choose which types of robots to deploy, as well as how and when to deploy them.
• A team’s robots could communicate directly, or via their operators at the control station.

Taking place over two days, Grand Challenge was designed to encourage and reward cooperation between ground, marine and aerial robots, while allowing maximum flexibility in participation and innovation. Half of the teams were multi-domain partnerships and the other half full multi-domain teams.

Day One participants:

• Cobham (land) + Universitat de Girona (sea) + ISEP/INESC TEC (air)
• ENSTA Bretagne Team 1 (land, sea, air)
• ENSTA Bretagne Team 2 (land, sea, air)

Day Two participants:

• Bebot (land, air) + AUV Team TomKyle (sea)
• B.R.A.I.N Robots (land) + UNIFI (sea, air)
• ICARUS (land, sea, air)

Watch the video recaps:

The Award Ceremony

After the runs were complete, the judges retired to analyse the data provided by the teams throughout the competition and reach a verdict. The awards ceremony took place at the gardens of Giardini Pro Patria, Piombino.

Alan Winfield, euRathlon project coordinator, welcomed everyone and opened the ceremony. Then followed short speeches by Deputy Mayor Stefano Ferrini, and CMRE Deputy Director Andrew Pickup.

Gabriele Ferri, Director of euRathlon 2015, thanked René Garello, representative of the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society, for their platinum sponsorship with a special focus on marine robotics. He also thanked the silver sponsors Enel, ECmanaged, Evologics, SBG-Systems and Texas Instruments, and Satoshi Tadokoro, IEEE RAS representative, for supporting the competition with the IEEE RAS Technical Committee (TC) on Safety, Security and Rescue Robotics (SSRR) special prizes for autonomy and multi-robot collaboration.

Winner of euRathlon 2015 Grand Challenge: Team Cobham (Land)+Universitat de Girona (Sea) + INESP/INESC TEC (Air). Photo credit: euRathlon

euRathlon 2015 winners

Grand Challenge

• 1st prize: Cobham + Universitat de Girona + ISEP/INESC TEC
• 2nd equal: ICARUS
• 2nd equal: Bebot + AUV Team TomKyle
• 3rd prize: ENSTA Bretagne Team 1

Land + Air sub-challenge

• 1st prize: Cobham + ISEP/INESC TEC

Sea + Land sub-challenge

• 1st prize: Cobham + Universitat de Girona

Best euRathlon SSRR Autonomy Award, given by IEEE RAS TC on Safety, Security and Rescue Robotics

• Winner: ICARUS
• Finalists: ICARUS, Universitat de Girona, ENSTA Bretagne Team 1

Best euRathlon MRS Multi-Robot Coordination Award, given by IEEE RAS TC on Multi-Robot Systems

• Winner: ICARUS
• Finalists: ICARUS, BeBot+AUV Team TomKyle, Universitat de Girona+Cobham

Texas Instruments Special Prizes for Innovation

• Winner (Land): Bebot
• Winner (Sea): Universitat de Girona
• Winner (Air): ICARUS

Marine Trials Prize (Students prize)

• 1st: Universitat de Girona
• 2nd: ENSTA Bretagne Team 1
• 3rd: AUGA

See you all at euRathlon 2017!

Group photo of euRathlon 2015 participants. Photo credit: euRathlon

DRC-HUBO robot from Team KAIST, winner of DARPA Robotics Challenge 2015, drops in for a visit on Day Four of eutRathlon 2015. Photo credit: euRathlon

Weather conditions challenged the teams participating on the second day of euRathlon 2015 two-domain sub-challenges. The morning started with the remaining team that had yet to participate in the land and air scenario (L+A). In the afternoon the strong wind made flying aerial robots difficulty, and to some extent, unsafe for spectators. As a result, the judges decided to cancel the sea and air (S+A) scenario scheduled for the afternoon, and allowed the land and sea robots to practise for the next day’s Grand Challenge. Find out the winners of the euRathlon 2015 sub-challenges …

Sub-Challenge (L+A): Survey the building and search for a missing worker

A minimum of one land robot and one aerial robot was required to participate in this scenario.

The robots had to perform a reconnaissance mission of the building and the land surrounding it. A schematic map of the building was given to the teams at the beginning of the sub-challenge. Entrances, corridors, rooms, and the machine room were shown on the map. However, it did not have detailed dimensions and the teams were told that it may or may not be up to date. Teams needed to be aware that an earthquake and tsunami had probably damaged part of the external and internal structure of the building, blocking some paths and entrances.

The team had to look for damage to the building, locate an unobstructed entrance, and at the same time find a safe path to the building and to the machine room for their land robot. Additionally, the robots had to find a missing worker (represented by a mannequin), who was located either inside or outside the building. If the worker was found during the first 30 minutes of the sub-challenge scenario, it improved the team’s chances of rescuing the worker alive.

Teams had 45 minutes to create a map of the interior of the building and its surroundings, and locate objects of potential interest, in this case blocked/unblocked entrances and corridors, damage, and the missing worker.

The multi-domain teams that participated in this second day of land and sea sub-challenges were:

• B.R.A.I.N. Robots (Land) + UNIFI (Sea & Air)
• ENSTA Bretagne Team 1 (Land, Sea & Air)
• ICARUS

One of ICARUS team’s multirotor (ICARUS EU-FP7 project). Photo credit: euRathlon

Caption: One of ICARUS team’s multirotor (ICARUS EU-FP7 project). Photo Credits: euRathlon

Sub-Challenge (S+A): Pipe inspection and search for a worker

A minimum of one marine robot and one aerial robot was required to participate in this scenario. Ground robots were not allowed in this sub-challenge.

In this scenario aerial robots had to inspect and map the beach area surrounding the building, and sea robots had to inspect and map the Enel-harbour area. They had to search for damage and leaks in the four pipe sections on land and the four pipe sections underwater, represented by different markers. The piping sections consisted of cylindrical yellow shapes on land and underwater, and each of the pipes on land was logically connected to one underwater (and vice-versa).

Robots also had to look for a missing worker represented by a mannequin dressed in bright orange. The worker could be located on the land outside the building or at the sea (at the surface near the shore or trapped underwater) in a supine or prone position.

Schematic representation of the piping structures for the Sea & Air Sub-Challenge. Credit: euRathlon

This scenario was cancelled due to poor weather conditions that could compromise safety for the aerial robots.

WALK-MAN and DRC-HUBO humanoid robots exhibition

A large audience of people of different ages came to Tor del Sale, Piombino, to see the exhibition of WALK-MAN and DRC-HUBO robots. These two humanoid robots participated recently in the DARPA Robotics Challenge in Los Angeles (USA). This was the first time they did a demonstration together in Europe. WALK-MAN is the robot developed by the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) and the Research Centre “E. Piaggio” from Pisa as part of an EU-FP7 project with the same name. DRC-HUBO, the winner of the DARPA Robotics Challenge 2015, is developed by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). The DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) is a competition of robot systems and software teams with the aim to develop robots capable of assisting humans in responding to natural and man-made disasters. Team KAIST and Team WALK-MAN showed how their robots walked, close a gate valve and could go up and down steps.

WALK-MAN robot closing a valve during the exhibition. Photo credit: euRathlon

Winners of euRathlon 2015 Two Domain Sub-Challenges

The winners of euRathlon 2015 two-domain sub-challenges were:

• Sub-Challenge (Land +Air) : Survey the building and search for a missing worker:
  – 1^st Cobham (Land)+ ISEP/INESC (Air)
  – 2^nd ICARUS (Land, Sea & Air)

• Sub-Challenge (Land & Sea) : Stem the leak:
  – 1^st Cobham (Land)+ Universitat de Girona (Sea)
  – 2^nd ICARUS (Land, Sea & Air)
  – 3^rd AUV Team TomKyle (Sea) + Bebot (Land, Air)
  – 4^th UNIFI (Air & Sea) + B.R.A.I.M. Robots (Land)

• Sub-Challenge (Sea + Air): Pipe inspection and search for a worker:
  Cancelled

Don’t miss tomorrow Day Five recap, the Grand Challenge starts!

 Missed coverage of some of the earlier challenges? Find it here.  

Robot Monique (B.R.A.I.N Robots) and the Enel Power Plant in Tor del Sale, Piombino. Photo Credits: Klemen Istenic

The first day of euRathlon 2015 two-domain sub-challenges started with the land and air (L+A) combined scenario, followed in the afternoon by the sea and land (S+L), where robots had to search for missing workers and leaks, inspect the building and close valves on land and underwater. Only ten teams passed to this second round of the competition, creating a total of 6 multi-domain teams — find out the winners of these trials and watch the video recap …

The Sub-Challenges

In euRathlon competition, the sub-challenges are referred to as the combined scenarios. They are two-domain scenarios, each a combination of two trials.

There are a total of three sub-challenges: land and sea (L+S), sea and air (S+A) and land and air (L+A). In the sub-challenges the main goal is cooperation between the two domains. Cooperation and autonomy are rewarded through the scoring schema.

Sub-Challenge (L+A): Survey the building and search for a missing worker

A minimum of one land robot and one aerial robot was required to participate in this scenario.

The robots had to perform a reconnaissance mission of the building and the land surrounding it. A schematic map of the building was given to the teams at the beginning of the sub-Challenge. Entrances, corridors, rooms, and the machine room were shown on the map. However, it did not have detailed dimensions and the teams were told that it may or may not be up to date. Teams needed to be aware that an earthquake and tsunami had probably damaged part of the external and internal structure of the building, blocking some paths and entrances.

The team had to look for damage to the building, locate an unobstructed entrance, and at the same time find a safe path to the building and to the machine room for their land robot. Additionally, the robots had to find a missing worker (represented by a mannequin), who was located either inside or outside the building. If the worker was found during the first 30 minutes of the sub-challenge scenario, it improved the team’s chances of rescuing the worker alive.

Teams had 45 minutes to create a map of the interior of the building and its surroundings, and locate objects of potential interest, in this case blocked/unblocked entrances and corridors, damage, and the missing worker.

Of the total of 6 multi-domain teams, only three teams participated in this first day of land and sea sub-challenges. The teams were:

• AUV Tomkyle (Sea) + Bebot (Land & Air)
• Cobham (Land) + Universitat de Girona (Sea) + ISEP/INESC (Air)
• ENSTA Bretagne Team 2 (Land, Sea & Air)

The rest of teams were scheduled for the next day.

Air Team UNIFI (University of Florence) partners with land team B.R.A.I.N Robots. Photo Credits: euRathlon

Sub-Challenge (L+S): Stem the leak

A minimum of one land robot and one marine robot was required to participate in this scenario. Aerial robots were not allowed in this sub-challenge.

Land and sea robots started from the premise that they had already reached the building and the pipes area underwater, respectively. The main tasks were to find the leaking pipes and close the correct valves underwater and on land to stop the leak. Special care had to be taken, as closing an incorrect valve could cause a reduction of the amount of water provided for cooling the reactor in the scenario, causing the team to incur a penalty.

Land and marine robots had to cooperate to map the area and discover the correct valves. Once the leak on land was found the ground robot had to communicate the number of that pipe to the sea robot, so that it could follow that pipe underwater and close the corresponding valve. In the case of the marine robot, it had to communicate the number of the leaking underwater pipe to the land robot so that it could close the corresponding valve. A schematic of the connections was given to the teams. The robots could not close the valves until the two correct pair were found, as the process of closing them had to be synchronised.

Schematic representation of the distribution of piping sections and valves and their correspondence for Sub-Challenge L+S. Photo credits: euRathlon

In this sub-challenge, it was known that the pipes on land close to the shore were not damaged or leaking, so no inspection of them by the land robots was required.

Only four multi-domain teams decided to participate in this L+S sub-challenge. They were:

• AUV TomKyle (Sea) +Bebot (Land & Air)
• Cobham (Land)+Universitat de Girona (Sea)+ISEP/INESC (Air)
• ICARUS (Land, Sea & Air)
• B.R.A.I.N. Robots (Land )+ UNIFI (Sea & Air)

Team Universitat de Girona (partner in this sub-challenge with Cobham) closing the valve underwater. Photo credits: euRathlon

Robot-era project exhibition

A big crowd of people attended the robotics exhibition of Robot-Era project (Scuola Sant’Anna di Pisa) at Piazza Bovio, in the main square of Piombino city. Robot-Era is an EU-funded project that focuses on the development, implementation and demonstration of feasibility of robots for assisted living. One of it aims is to improve the quality of life and efficiency of care for the elderly people.

: The three assistance living robots of Robot-Era project ready to welcome the public. Photo credits: euRathlon

Winners of euRathlon 2015 Trials (A2, S2, L2).

The winners of the second euRathlon 2015 trials were:

• Land Trial (L2): Mobile manipulation (valve closing):
  – 1^st Cobham
  – shared 2^nd ICARUS / Bebot
  – 4^th SARRUS
  – 5^th ENSTA Bretagne Team 1

• Sea Trial (S2): Leak localisation and valve closing:
  – 1^st Universitat de Girona
  – 2^nd ENSTA Bretagne Team 1
  – 3^rd AUGA
  – shared 4^th OUBOT / AUV Team TomKyle

• Air Trial (A2): Aerial reconnaissance inside a building:
  – 1^st ENSTA Bretagne Team 1
  – 2^nd ENSTA Bretagne Team 2 

Don’t miss tomorrow Day Four recap of the second set of sub-challenges and the exhibition of the DRC-HUBO KAIST and WALK-MAN Humanoid robots!

Missed coverage of some of the earlier challenges? Find it here.  

Sea scenarios take place in the harbour of the Enel power plant, Piombino, Italy. Image: euRathlon

Inspired by the 2011 Fukushima accident, euRathlon is a civilian outdoor robotics competition focused on realistic cooperative disaster response scenarios. On the second day of single-domain trials, the land, sea and air robots faced three new challenges. Sea robots had to search for a leak and close a valve, while land robots had to inspect the inside of the building and close the valves in the machine room. Aerial robots had to inspect the building and look for a safe path to the machine room for a land robot. The winners of the first euRathlon 2015 trials were unveiled and a series of robotics talks took place at Piombino Castle.

Watch the Day Two recap video here:

Sea Trial (S2): Leak localisation and valve closing

In this second trial, the marine robots had to localise a leaking underwater pipe and close the valve associated to it. The leak was represented by a plume of orange buoys and an orange rectangular marker on one of the four yellow pipes. Once the leaking pipe was found, the robot had to follow it to reach the underwater structure where the valve was mounted. Finally, the robot had to close the valve to stop the hypothetical leak.

As in previous days, the teams had to work under poor water visibility conditions, making it harder to find the leak and close the valve. Teams were only allowed to tele-operate their AUVs (Autonomous Underwater Vehicles) for closing the valve.

Eleven teams participated in this sea trial, competing in parallel in two different areas. The teams were AUV Team TomKyle, Robdos Team , ENSTA Bretagne Team 1, ENSTA Bretagne Team 2, Team Nessie, Universitat de Girona , AUGA, AVORA, UNIFI, ICARUS and OUBOT.

AUV Team Tomkyle (University of Applied Sciences Kiel) preparing for the second sea trial. Photo credits: euRathlon

Land Trial (L2): Mobile Manipulation (valves closing)

In the mobile manipulation land trial, the robots had to reach the machine room inside the building. Inside the machine room there were 4 valves, a canister containing water that simulated contaminated material and a barrel. The land robots had to close a minimum of one valve. They were also required to pick up the canister containing the “hazardous” substance, move it into the barrel, and then cover the barrel with a lid.

The seven teams that participated in this trial were Bebot, B.R.A.I.N. Robots, ENSTA Bretagne Team 1, ENSTA Bretagne Team 2, Cobham, ICARUS and SARRUS.

Team Bebot (Bern University of Applied Sciences) setting things up before starting the second land trial . Image: euRathlon

Air Trial (A2): Aerial reconnaissance inside a building

In the second air trial, aerial robots performed a reconnaissance mission of the building in order to increase the situational awareness of the emergency response team. For this purpose, the robots had to enter the building and find a safe path to the machine room for a land robot. The UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) had to create a map and localise objects of potential interest (OPIs) that marked obstacles and blocked paths that would limit access for a ground robot.

Due to the complexity of flying inside a building (which also limits the size of the UAV), only three teams participated: ENSTA Bretagne Team 1, ENSTA Bretagne Team 2 and ICARUS. This last team opted for inspecting the inside of the building through the windows using a thermal camera.

ENSTA Bretagne Team 2 performing the aerial reconnaissance inside the building. Image: euRathlon

Robotics talks

As part of euRathlon 2015, a series of robotics talks took place in the evening at Piombino Castle. On Sunday, Prof Alan Winfield (UWE Bristol, Bristol Robotics Laboratory), Dr Anne Bajart (EU Commission Project Officer) and Dr Gabriele Ferri (CMRE) presented the euRathlon project to the audience. This introduction was followed by a talk on robotics for underwater archaeology by archaeologist Pamela Gambogi (Soprintendenza dei Beni Archeologici della Toscana) and Prof Andrea Caiti (ISME, University of Pisa). Monday’s talks also featured another group of exceptional speakers: Prof Paolo Dario (Scuola Sant’Anna of Pisa) presented the Robot-Era project and the Biorobotics Institute and Dr Nikos Tsagaraskis (IIT, Genova) talked about the WALK-MAN project and their experience participating in the DARPA Robotics Challenge with their humanoid robot.

Prof Paolo Dario (Scuola Sant’Anna of Pisa) presenting on the Biorobotics Institute. Image: euRathlon

Winners of euRathlon 2015 Trials (A1, S1, L1)

The winners of the first euRathlon 2015 trials were:

• Land Trial (L1): Reconnaissance in urban structure. Shared 1st place – Bebot / Cobham, 3rd – SARRUS

• Sea Trial (S1): Navigation and environmental survey. 1st – Universitat de Girona, 2nd – ENSTA Bretagne Team 1, 3rd – AUGA, 4th – ICARUS, 5th – AUV Team TomKyle

• Air Trial (A1): Aerial detection and mapping. 1st – ICARUS, 2nd – ISEP/INESC TEC, shared 3rd – ENSTA Bretagne Team 1 / ENSTA Bretagne Team 2

Don’t miss tomorrow’s Day Three recap for the results of the second day of trials and the start of the two-domain Sub-Challenges!

Missed coverage of some of the earlier challenges? Find it here.  

[Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly noted the order of the Sea Trial Winners.]

Torre del Sale building, Piombino, Italy. Image: eurathlon

Inspired by the 2011 Fukushima accident, euRathlon is a civilian outdoor robotics competition focused on realistic cooperative disaster response scenarios. euRathlon 2015 takes place in the area surrounding the building of Torre del Sale, on the site of the Enel-owned power plant, and 16 teams from ten different countries have travelled to Piombino, Italy, to tackle this unique challenge. In the first day of trials, aerial, ground and marine robots had to deal with the very real conditions of a demanding coastal environment. Watch the Day One recap video.

The Opening

The mayor of the city of Piombino, Massimo Giuliani, gave a warm welcome to all the attendees, followed by the Enel engineer Antongiulio Bertoncini, Dr Anne Bajart (the project’s European Commission officer), Professor Alan Winfield (euRathlon project Coordinator) and Dr Gabriele Ferri (Head of the euRathlon 2015 robotics competition).

The Trials

The euRathlon 2015 scenarios are arranged in increasing order of complexity, with the trials first, followed by the sub-challenges and finally the Grand Challenge.

Trials are single-domain scenarios designed to encourage the participation of teams that may not have the time, resources and/or experience to directly address the euRathlon Grand Challenge. But, at the same time, they serve as a warm up for the multi-domain (land, sea and air) teams. There are a total of six trials divided into two land trials (L1, L2), two sea trials (S1, S2) and two air trials (A1, A2).

Land Trial (L1): Reconnaissance in Urban Structure

For the first of the two land trials the competitors’ robots were required to approach, inspect and map a ruined building. The land robots had to navigate across a beach filled with obstacles such as wood debris, vegetation and sand dunes. Once inside the building, robots had to look for mock damage and the entrance to the machine room.

A schematic map of the building was given to the teams at the beginning of the trial. The map didn’t include detailed dimensions of entrances, corridors and rooms. As part of the staging, entrances are randomly blocked as a result of a hypothetical earthquake and tsunami.

The seven teams participating in this land trial were B.R.A.I.N. Robots, Cobham, Bebot, ICARUS, ENSTA Bretagne Team 1, ENSTA Bretagne Team 2 and SARRUS.

The beach natural environment turned out to be a real challenge for the robots and only two teams successfully entered the building.

Team ICARUS (ICARUS EU-FP7) preparing for the land trial. Image: euRathlon

Sea Trial (S1): Navigation and Environmental Survey

The sea trial took place in the Enel-owned plant harbour, where robots were tasked with surveying an area of 15×15 metres in the basin of the dock.

The AUVs (Autonomous Unmanned Vehicles) had to navigate from the launch point to a validation gate, pass through it and search for damage on the seabed, marked by submerged orange buoys.

The 11 teams participating in the sea trial competed in parallel, in two different areas. The teams were OUBOT, AUV Team TomKyle, ENSTA Bretagne Team 2, AVORA, UNIFI, ENSTA Bretagne Team 1, AUGA, Team Nessie, ICARUS, Robdos Team and Universitat de Girona.

Teams had to contend with poor water visibility worsened by the rough sea conditions of the previous days. Although acquiring live video and images of the buoys with the on-board camera was a challenge, most of the teams succeed in the navigation task.

Team OUBOT (Obuda University) after their participation in the sea trial.

Air Trial (A1): Aerial Detection and Mapping

In this first air trial, teams were called on to conduct an aerial inspection to find a safe path from the starting point, for a land robot, to an unblocked entrance of the building.

Specific take-off and landing areas were designated for the UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles).

The robots had to map the area surrounding the building and look for objects of potential interest (OPIs) representing blocked and unblocked entrances.

The six teams that participated in this trial were UNIFI, ICARUS, ENSTA Bretagne Team 1, ENSTA Bretagne Team 2 and ISEP/INESC TEC.

Team UNIFI ( University of Florence) getting ready for the aerial trial. Image: euRathlon

The teams faced variable wind conditions during the day, but that did not stop their robots from taking-off and flying around the building. Most of the teams succeed in surveying the area and finding a safe path for the land robot. 

Watch this space for Day Two: the second set of land, and sea trials!

The location of euRathlon 2015 competition at Torre del Sale, Piombino, Italy. Photo credits: EURATHLON

On March 11, 2011, a tsunami and earthquake struck Fukushima Dai-ichi energy plant causing a major disaster. Since then emergency services have deployed robots to inspect the area and collect data. Some robot surveys were successful while others failed, underlining the pressing need to advance the state-of-the-art in autonomous robots for disaster response. Further research is necessary, and so is testing in realistic environments. Shinji Kawatsuma, from the Japan Atomic Energy Authority (JAEA), urged in his outstanding talk in euRathlon 2013: “Don’t build robots, build robot systems”. And this is what euRathlon 2015 is all about: testing the capabilities of robot systems in realistic mock emergency-response scenarios.

euRathlon is an outdoor robotics competition funded by the European Union with a focus on realistic cooperative search and rescue response scenarios for land, sea and air robots. Inspired by the 2011 Fukushima accident, the euRathlon 2015 Grand Challenge can only be met when these three domains of robotics are working cooperatively. Previous single-domain euRathlon competitions focussed on land (2013), sea (2014). These, alongside team building workshops, and have been building up to the 2015 Grand Challenge, where the overall aim is to advance the state-of-the-art in heterogeneous teams of autonomous vehicles. Multi-disciplinary and multi-organisational teams of students and engineers will survey the scene, collect data, search for missing workers, identify critical hazards, and more, all in a race against the clock. Of the sixteen teams that have qualified for euRathlon 2015, ten will participate in the Grand Challenge (sea, land and air) creating a total of 6 multi-domain teams.

The scenarios

The euRathlon 2015 Challenge will be held in the area surrounding the Tor del Sale building, and in the Enel-owned thermal power plant sheltered harbour.

Although competing robots will face mock scenarios, the environmental conditions and difficulties are intended to be as realistic as reasonably possible, and the success criteria will reflect straightforward end-user priorities such as task completion and minimal intervention with the robots.

Three different types of scenarios have been defined:

• The Grand Challenge: a three-domain air, land and sea scenario, which comprises three missions.
• Sub-Challenge: two-domain scenarios; each is a combination of two trials.
• Trial: single-domain scenarios.

The scenarios will begin with the six Trials (2 land, 2 sea and 2 air), move on to the three Sub-Challenges (land + air, sea + air, land + sea), and finish with the Grand Challenge. The euRathlon Grand Challenge main goal is task fulfilment, but autonomy and cooperation between domains are also essential for achieving the mission objectives – to search for missing workers, conduct an environmental survey, and stem a leak – within the allocated time.

Drafts of the scenarios, competition rules and the scoring/benchmarking schema were published in advance for teams to comment. However, detailed descriptions of the scenario setups, for instance the location of blocked doors or missing workers, have not been given to teams because such details would not be known ahead of time in a real life scenario.

euRathlon 2015 Grand Challenge schematic. Credits: EURATHLON

The teams

As in previous euRathlon events, teams were required to undertake a qualifying process to prove that their vehicle(s) would be able to cope with the scenarios. The teams were asked to write a Scenario Application Paper (SAP) for each of the scenarios they were planning to enter. In the SAPs they describe their robot(s) and explain how they plan to address the technical challenges for each specific scenario. A technical advisory board reviewed the SAPs and checked that the proposed solutions were realistic.

The 16 teams participating in the euRathlon 2015 Challenge are:

1. AUGA – Team AUGA (or “water” in Galego) is from ACSM (Advanced Crew and Ship Management), a company that will participate in the sea trials with one of the SPARUS II AUVs that were loaned to less experienced teams by the euRathlon organisation.
2. AVORA – The AVORA team is from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, which will participate in the sea trials with their robot, Charle.
3. AUV Team Tom Kyle – AUV Team Tom Kyle is from the University of Applied Sciences of Kiel, Germany, which will participate in the sea trials with their robot Robbe 131 and will partner with Bebot team for the Sub-challenges and Grand Challenge.
4. Bebot Team – Bebot is a two-domain team from the University of Applied Sciences of Bern, Switzerland. They will participate in the competition with their robots Bebot (land) and Bee (Air), and will partner with AUV Team Tom Kyle to participate in the Grand Challenge.
5. B.R.A.I.N. Robots –  B.R.A.I.N. Robots e.V. from Esslingen, Germany, participated in euRathlon 2013. In 2015 they will participate in trials and sub-challenges with their robots Monique (land), Alice (land), Caro (sea) and Hannah (sea). They will team up with UNIFI Team for the Grand Challenge.
6. Cobham – Team Cobham is from the German-based company Cobham Mission Systems. Cobham was one of the winners of euRathlon 2013 with their robot Telemax. This year they will participate in land trials and will team up with ISEP/INESC TEC and Universitat de Girona for the Sub-Challenges and Grand Challenge.
7. ENSTA Bretagne Team 1 – one of the two multi-domain teams from the Institute of ENSTA Bretagne, France, that are going to participate in the trials, such-challenges and Grand Challenge. ENSTA is the only institution that participated in both euRathlon 2013 and 2014. They will participate with the robots SAUC’ISSE, SARDINE, USV, ETAS WHEEL, ETAS TRACK, buggy, and two quadrotors.
8. ENSTA Bretagne Team 2 – the second of the two multi-domain teams from the Institute of ENSTA Bretagne, France. Like Team 1, they are going to participate in trials, such-challenges and Grand Challenge. Their robots are CISCREA, EUREKA, TREX, a buggy and two quadrotors.
9. ISEP/INESC TEC Aerial Team – The team from ISEP/INESC TEC (Portugal) will participate in the aerial trials with their robot OTUS. They will team up with Universitat de Girona and Cobham for the Sub-Challenges and Grand Challenge.
10. ICARUS – This is the team of the ICARUS EU-FP7 Project, with partners from Belgium, Germany, Poland, Portugal and Spain. This multi-domain team will participate in the trials, sub-challenges and the Grand Challenge with their robots ASCAMM-LIFT-V and ASCAMM-LIFT-VI (air), UKL-SUGV and RMA-IMM-tEODor (land), INESC_ROAZ and INESC_MARES (sea).
11. Team Nessie – The team from the Ocean Systems Laboratory & Heriot Watt University (UK) will participate in sea trials with their robots NESSIE VII and E.M.I.L.Y.
12. OUBOT – The team from Obuda University (Hungary) will participate with one of the SPARUS II UAV loaned by euRathlon consortium in the sea trials.
13. Robdos Team Underwater Robotics – Robdos is formed by a group of students from the University Polytechnic of Madrid (UPM) and the Spanish-based company Robdos SRL. They will participate in the sea trials with one of the SPARUS II that euRathlon loaned to them and which they participated in euRathlon 2014.
14. SARRUS-Search And Rescue Robot of UPM & SENER – is the team of the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (UPM), Spain, and the company SENER Ingenieria y Sistemas S.A. They will participate in land trials with their robot Summit XL.
15. UNIFI Team – UNIFI is the team of the University of Florence (Italy) that will participate in the sea and land trials with their robots FEELHIPPO (sea), MARTA (sea) and BATIGOL (air). They will team up with B.R.A.I.N Robots for the Sub-Challenges and Grand Challenge.
16. Universitat de Girona – The team of the University of Girona is formed by students and researchers of the Underwater Vision & Robotics Research Centre (CIRS). The team develops and operates the robot vehicle SPARUS II AUV that was one of the winners of euRathlon 2014 sea competition. This year they will participate in sea trials and will team up with Cobham and ISEP/INESC TEC for Sub-Challenges and the Grand Challenge.

Which teams will successfully address the Grand Challenge? Don’t miss the updates starting this week.

For pictures and more information about the teams visit: http://www.eurathlon.eu/index.php/compete2/teams2015/

Team testing their AUVs onsite one week before euRathlon 2014 competition. Photo credit: CMRE

euRathlon is a new outdoor robotics competition that invites teams to test the intelligence and autonomy of their robots in realistic mock emergency-response scenarios inspired by the 2011 Fukushima accident. The euRathlon 2015 Grand Challenge will require a team of ground, marine and aerial robots to work together to survey the scene, collect environmental data, and identify critical hazards. euRathlon 2015 will be held in Piombino, Italy, from the 17^th– 25^th September 2015. 

The competition will take place in the area surrounding the Torre del Sale building, on the beach and in the nearby waters, and in the Enel-owned thermal power plant sheltered harbour. Competitors and their robots will face real life conditions (i.e., a ruined building, sandy terrain, etc) in a realistic mock disaster scenario.

We welcome teams from universities, research labs and industry; from single organisations or teams made up from multiple organisations. Although euRathlon is a European initiative, International teams are also welcome.

To encourage the participation of the maximum number of teams – especially teams with experience in one domain only, three different categories of scenarios have been defined:

• The Grand Challenge: a three-domain scenario, which comprises three missions
• Sub-Challenge: two-domain scenarios; each is a combination of two trials
• Trial: single-domain scenarios

There will be a total of one Grand Challenge, three Sub-Challenges and six trials.

The scenarios will be held in increasing order of complexity (i.e. the trials will be held first followed by the sub-challenges and finally the Grand Challenge). Trials and sub-challenges will allow teams to test and prepare their robots as the scenarios are based on and preparatory to the Grand Challenge. You can learn more about the scenarios here.

There is a Team Matching form available on the website for single-domain teams that wish to join with teams in other domains to create a multi-domain team before the competition.

Official information concerning the registration process, requirements, programme, scenarios and the competition can be found on the euRathlon website and the euRathlon forum.

Please visit www.eurathlon.eu for detailed information or contact eurathlon@uwe.ac.uk.

This project is funded by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n^o 601205.

Example of visualization of the euRathlon 2013 Common Shared Data Set (CSDS) for the scenario “Search and rescue in a smoke-filled underground structure”. Technically, it’s a ROS rviz visualization of a recorded sensor rosbag. Photo credit: euRathlon

euRathlon is an EU-funded project that aims to set the standard for research through robotics competitions. It not only provides opportunities to test advanced emergency response robots in very challenging outdoor scenarios, but also recognises that there is an urgent need to develop useful metrics that will advance the field. A series of Common Shared Data Sets of real data gathered before and during the competitions are now available to the robotics community through a cloud tool sponsored by ECmanaged. euRathlon is staging a series of outdoor robotics competitions for land, sea and air robots, inspired by the 2011 Fukushima accident. After successful land and sea competitions in 2013 and 2014 respectively, the project will stage the three-domain euRathlon 2015 Challenge in Piombino, Italy, from 17th-25th of September 2015.

Real data in realistic scenarios

Participating in outdoor competitions is a great opportunity for roboticists to test their vehicles and gather real data in realistic scenarios. The seven euRathlon partners have contributed their expertise in each domain (land, sea and air robotics) to design realistic but also achievable scenarios that are oriented to emergency-services and industry demands. The scenarios also aim to be:

1. technically demanding, i.e. pushing the boundaries of the state of the art,
2. relevant to the research, industry and user communities, and
3. feasible in the context of a competition both in terms of logistics and evaluation.

The importance of Common Shared Data Sets (CSDS)

Teams that are either new to the competition or have limited access to proper hardware and training areas face the problem that they cannot test their system against typical settings as they would appear in the competition. Also the comparison of methods or configurations requires an exactly reproducible data stream from all sensor inputs. A classical approach to coping with this situation is to provide standardized Common Shared Data Sets (CSDS). Many fields in science and engineering employ standardized CSDS to evaluate similar research, approaches, or techniques and to provide the means for their comparison. Common Shared Data Sets are a good base from which to accelerate the progress of the state-of-the-art in research.

We believe that sharing data reinforces open scientific research, promotes new research and encourages a diversity of analysis and opinions. This is why one of our goals is to provide a framework for the community to discuss and work towards the development of metrics, scenarios and other matters of relevance. The metrics and the euRathlon 2015 challenge scenarios draft are open for discussion in the web-based euRathlon forum.

euRathlon 2015 Common Shared Data Set (CSDS) aerial outdoor task. Image acquired by the UAV at the maximum resolution during the high altitude flight. Photo credits: CATEC

euRathlon CSDS are available to the robotics community

The repository of Common Shared Data Sets produced before and during the euRathlon competitions is a valuable pool for testing, benchmarking and comparison. ECmanaged, a Spanish-based company, sponsors euRathlon with a cloud storage tool that allows the open dissemination of the data sets and other online materials to the robotics community and public in general.

In the euRathlon 2013 land competition, we have previously made available recorded real data sets of the scenarios from the real trials area; and in the euRathlon 2014 sea competition, teams could test one week prior the competition in the real location with the objects used in the competition. The euRathlon 2013 land competition CSDS and the euRathlon 2014 sea competition CSDS generously provided by teams participating in the competitions are now available to the community.

For the euRathlon 2015 competition, we have generated two datasets for the aerial domain: a dataset of indoor tasks and a dataset of outdoor tasks. These data sets have been created from real data collected with real systems in real field experiments. The experiments are designed to be similar to the scenarios that teams will face during the euRathlon 2015. The euRathlon 2015 Challenge CSDS (provided by the organisers) can be used to test and improve robotic systems, and we hope will also help to motivate multi-domain teams to participate in the competition.

Teams could test their AUVs in the real location one week before euRathlon 2014 competition. Photo credit: CMRE

About ECmanaged

ECmanaged is a multi-Cloud and IT management tool that enables users to take full control of their Cloud Platforms and Physical servers at the implementation phase and afterwards. Its design and interface allow users to develop Cloud platforms while avoiding provider-imposed restrictions. ECmanaged combines a monitoring tool with automated management actions such as alerting, auto-scaling and disaster recovery. It uses a novel approach of high-level platform modelling allowing Cloud platforms to be developed avoiding provider imposed restrictions. The deployment of applications is also simplified through the use of predefined templates and images. A key feature is the automated incident resolution with up to 80% of incidents being solved without any human intervention in less than 5 minutes.