RoboCupRescue international research project

RoboCupRescue started as an international cooperative research project that aims at giving effective solutions from robotics and IT to the urban search and rescue problems in large-scale disasters. The Ž nal goal of this project is the proposition of desirable social infrastructure for the next generation that is empowered by robotics. The experience of Kobe Earthquake showed the following requirement of robotic systems: (1) adaptability to the environment, (2) portability or mobility, (3) cooperation with human, (4) human support function, (5) continuity from normal time to disaster, (6) large number and distribution of systems, (7) wide variety of system functions, (8) standardization for interoperability and cost reduction, (9) scalability and extendibility, and (10) optimal operation control. In order to give solutions to these problems, two projects are going forward now: RoboCupRescue Robot Project and RoboCupRescue Simulation Project.