The team have just arrived in Magdeburg after an epic 14 hour road trip across the continent and are really excited to be competing in the German Open RoboCup Rescue competition this week.

The intention of the RoboCup Rescue competition is to increase awareness of the challenges involved in real-life search and rescue applications. The competition provides an opportunity for teams to test their innovations and collaborate with other research teams to share knowledge for the future.

The robots are required to demonstrate their capabilities in mobility, sensory perception, planning, mapping, and practical operator interfaces, while searching for simulated victims in unstructured environments.

The team won “Best in Mobility” from 2009-2012, “Best in Manipulation” in 2012 and won the competition in 2010. Last year, the team entered the World RoboCup competition for the first time and placed 10^th in the world.

This year, two Warwick Mobile Robotic urban search and rescue robots have accompanied the team of their journey to the competition. One robot is about to take part in its sixth competition. Over the past few months, the team have improved its reliability and the range over which it can be used. As well as this, we have improved the user interface by introducing virtual reality headset, Oculus Rift. (More exciting pictures and videos to follow!)

The second robot is a new, smaller, lighter robot which the team worked tirelessly to design and manufacture this year. Although it is not yet programmed, the team will be able to assess how it might fair in the smaller parts of the arena which it was intended for and gain knowledge for improvements in future years.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our sponsors. The project would not be possible without your help and support.

Please keep an eye on our website, Twitter or Facebook for updates throughout the competition.

Warwick Mobile Robotics Team

Twitter: @WMRobotics Facebook: WMRobotics

Proudly sponsored by:
Warwick Manufacturing Group, School of Engineering, WMG Centre HVM Catapult, Warwick SU, MakerBeam, GTSS, Mouser Electronics, Harwin and Autodesk