Indoor aerial robot competition: challenges in search and rescue applications

Tasks like bomb-detection, search-and-rescue, and reconnaissance in near-Earth environments are time, cost and labor intensive. Aerial robots could assist in such missions and offset the demand in resources and personnel. However, flying in environments rich with obstacles presents many more challenges which have yet to be identified. For example, telephone wire is one obstacle that is known to be hard to detect in mid-flight. This paper describes how a blimp can be used in an aerial robot competition to identify other key challenges when flying in these cluttered environments.