The EU-ICARUS project: Developing assistive robotic tools for search and rescue operations

The ICARUS EU-FP7 project deals with the development of a set of integrated components to assist search and rescue teams in dealing with the difficult and dangerous, but life-saving task of finding human survivors. The ICARUS tools consist of assistive unmanned air, ground and sea vehicles, equipped with victim detection sensors. The unmanned vehicles collaborate as a coordinated team, communicating via ad-hoc cognitive radio networking. To ensure optimal human-robot collaboration, these tools are seamlessly integrated into the C4I (command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence) equipment of the human crisis managers and a set of training and support tools is provided to them to learn to use the ICARUS system.