The SHERPA project: Smart collaboration between humans and ground-aerial robots for improving rescuing activities in alpine environments

L. Marconi, C. Melchiorri, M. Beetz, D. Pangercic, R. Siegwart, S. Leutenegger, R. Carloni, S. Stramigioli, H. Bruyninckx, P. Doherty, A. Kleiner, V. Lippiello (+4 others)
2012 2012 IEEE International Symposium on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics (SSRR)  
The goal of the paper is to present the foreseen research activity of the European project "SHERPA" whose activities will start officially on February 1th 2013. The goal of SHERPA is to develop a mixed ground and aerial robotic platform to support search and rescue activities in a real-world hostile environment, like the alpine scenario that is specifically targeted in the project. Looking into the technological platform and the alpine rescuing scenario, we plan to address a number of research
more » ... opics about cognition and control. What makes the project potentially very rich from a scientific viewpoint is the heterogeneity and the capabilities to be owned by the different actors of the SHERPA system: the human rescuer is the "busy genius", working in team with the ground vehicle, as the "intelligent donkey", and with the aerial platforms, i.e. the "trained wasps" and "patrolling hawks". Indeed, the research activity focuses on how the "busy genius" and the "SHERPA animals" interact and collaborate with each other, with their own features and capabilities, toward the achievement of a common goal.
doi:10.1109/ssrr.2012.6523905 dblp:conf/ssrr/MarconiMBPSLCSBDKLFSST12 fatcat:4eeyxvmqijepppt75k37z6fl4m