USARSim: a RoboCup virtual urban search and rescue competition

Abstract

Research efforts in Urban Search And Rescue (USAR) robotics have grown substantially in recent years. A virtual USAR robotic competition was established in 2006 under the RoboCup umbrella to foster collaboration amongst institutions and to provide benchmark test environments for system evaluation. In this paper we describe the physics based software simulation framework that is used in this competition and the rules and performance metrics used to determine the league's winner. The framework allows for the realistic modeling of robots, sensors, and actuators, as well as complex, unstructured, dynamic environments. Multiple heterogeneous agents can be concurrently placed in the simulation environment thus allowing for team or group evaluations.