In emergency situations, robotic systems play a key role in providing rescue teams with remote access to an emergency site. The European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency’s (GSA) ERL Emergency Local Tournament 2019 aims to foster advanced developments of autonomous capabilities and seamless navigation for emergency robotic systems. The deadline for the tourney has been extended to Oct. 29, 2018.
The European Robotics League (ERL) is an innovative robot competition that stems from its predecessors – the euRathlon and RoCKIn competitions — and focuses on tasks that robots must execute in realistic emergency situations. The competition is composed of multiple local tournaments, held in different locations across Europe, in addition to a few major events. The event is targeting autonomous capabilities and seamless navigation for emergency robotic systems, and interested teams are asked to “take the challenge with EGNOS and Galileo.”
The first of the challenges was announced in July 2018, and focused on land and sea robotic systems. The second, to be held in February 2019 at the premises of the Advanced Centre for Aerospace Technologies (CATEC) in Seville, Spain, will include air and land robots working in an outdoor/indoor environment. You can find more information about the challenges here. https://sites.google.com/catec.aero/erl-emergency-2019/competition
Teams participate in a minimum of two tournaments (local and/or major) per year and get scores based on their performances. Each team’s top two tournament scores are then added together and the teams are ranked based on their cumulative score. Prizes for the top teams are awarded at the following year’s European Robotics Forum (ERF).
GSA Special Prize
The GSA will award a special prize at ERL Emergency 2019 focusing on robots that make use of solutions based on Galileo and EGNOS.
For air robots, this challenge will involve two types of tasks: horizontal accuracy in landings at a specific geographic coordinate; and vertical accuracy while hovering at a specific geographic coordinate. For land robots, there will be only one type of task —horizontal accuracy during waypoint-based navigation.
Visual markers will be used to support the assessment of both types of task. To be eligible for the award, a team must have executed valid trials of the tasks. The team deemed to have achieved the best results will be declared the winner. For information on Galileo capable receivers and navigation kits for robotic systems visit https://www.usegalileo.eu/EN/.
For those interested, on October 22, from 2:00 PM – 4:30 PM CEST, organizers will be holding a webinar on How to submit a winning proposal for the Emergency 2019 – robots to the rescue, competition!
You can register for the webinar here.
Register your team here by the deadline of October 29, 2018.
