Blue Swarm 3: Integrating Capabilities for an Autonomous Rescue Robot Swarm

The robotics team at Utah State University has been working on incrementally building the capabilities needed to field an autonomous swarm of rescue robots. We believe a swarm of small, low-cost robots that can identify areas needing further investigation would be of great benefit to first responders to the scene of a disaster. Blue Swarm 3 is the latest iteration in this development process and is the first swarm to try to incorporate all of the capabilities needed for a fieldable rescue robot swarm. This paper discusses the philosophy behind Blue Swarm 3, the historical background behind the previous swarms, details of the design of Blue Swarm 3, the results of our efforts at this year’s American Association for Artificial Intelligence Mobile Robot Competition, lessons learned, and plans for the future development of the Blue Swarm 3 and follow-on swarms