euRathlon
An outdoor robotics competition to test robots in realistic, demanding mock emergency-response scenarios, inspired by the Fukushima disaster.
euRathlon was an outdoor robotics competition, in which teams from around the world were invited to test the intelligence and autonomy of their robots in realistic, demanding mock emergency-response scenarios, inspired by the Fukushima disaster.
A competition for land-based vehicles was held from 23-27 September 2013 in Berchtesgaden, Germany, based on the successful ELROB competition. This was followed by an underwater robot competition in 2014, with the final competition in 2015 requiring a team of terrestrial, marine and aerial robots to work collaboratively to survey the scene, collect environmental data and identify critical hazards. The competitions were supported by annual workshops and an open process for developing benchmarks.
Professor Alan Winfield of the Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL) and the University of the West of England (UWE) led the euRathlon consortium with six partner organisations:
- Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE), La Spezia, Italy.
- Centre for Advanced Aerospace Technologies (CATEC), Sevilla, Spain.
- Fraunhofer FKIE , Wachtberg, Germany.
- Heriot-Watt University , Edinburgh, UK.
- Plataforma Oceánica de Canarias (PLOCAN), Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain.
- University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland.
euRathlon was a 3-year project funded by the European Commission under its Seventh Framework Programme for Research (FP7). euRathlon aimed to provide a platform for challenging, extending and showcasing European and international cognitive robotics technologies, as well as offering a link between robotics research, industry, teaching and the public.
For further information please contact the project manager Marta.palaufranco@uwe.ac.uk.