Introduction
Robots that can navigate small spaces autonomously are tremendously useful in natural disasters, such as earthquakes and tornadoes, as well as human-caused disasters, such as building or bridge collapse, fire, or terrorist attack. Particularly since September 11, much research has focused on the area of search-and-rescue robots, on robot vision, and on artificial intelligence, or autonomy, in robots. RoboCup has even sponsored several "rescue cup" competitions, in which robots compete in simulated disaster scenarios. Yet there are still many unanswered or partially-answered questions, particularly around the artificial intelligence/software design of such robots. The design of software to autonomously control search-and-rescue robots is the focus of this comps project. (courtesy Amy Csizmar Dalal)
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