Robotics for urban search and rescue

This paper describes a team of robots that are designed for urban search and rescue applications. The team CASualty consists of four tele-operated robots and one autonomous robot. A brief description of the capabilities of the robot team is presented together with the details of capabilities of the autonomous robot HOMER. In particular, the software architecture, user interface, strategies used for mapping, exploration and the identification of human victims present in the environment are described. The team participated in an international competition on urban search and rescue (RoboCup Rescue) held in Bremen, Germany in June 2006 where HOMER was placed second in the autonomy challeng