The AROUND project: Adapting robotic disaster response to developing countries

The global climate change induces an increase, in terms of frequency and devastating power, of natural disasters (particularly in developing countries). For facing this, there is a growing need for robotic assistance, for collecting information, managing disaster situation, rescuing victims and preserve human lives. It is one of the means recommended by the UNPD (United Nations Program for Development), which consist in the deployment of on-field automated monitoring, surveillance and reconnaissance systems. This paper outlines the research performed in the AROUND (autonomous robots for observation of urban networks after disasters) project. This project addresses the issue of developing a search and rescue multi-robot systems taking into account specific constraints of developing countries.