Team Hector Darmstadt

19/07/2025

This year we are testing our new platform Athena at the RoboCup Worldwide in Brazil ✈️

The Rescue Robot league gives us a unique opportunity to test the limits of our robot to see what works and what doesn't 🧑‍🔧
The tests are extremely challenging for the robot hardware and require robust solutions for the on-board autonomy 🦾

We have come here with a new platform and after a switch to ROS 2 so there was a lot of work to do and issues to address but our students were highly motivated and we have made a lot of progress 🎉

Unfortunately, in the semi-finals on the stairs with obstacles our flipper wheels broke and the competition was cut short for us.
With the reduced stress, we will now use the time to improve our manipulator autonomy in preparation for next year 🥇

A big thanks to for supporting the team and both and for the co-funding of the new rescue robot platform Athena!

20/07/2024

Tomorrow's finals can be watched live on YouTube: https://2024.robocup.org/live/rescue-league/

Our schedule is:
09:00 Continuous Ramps + K-Rails + Pallets
10:00 Incline + Crossing Ramps + Sand & Gravel
11:00 Avoid Holes + Door + Stairs + Maze

20/07/2024

Despite the tough competition this year, we're excited to share that we've qualified for tomorrow's finals!

Today, we successfully tested our autonomous flipper control in the challenging and narrow pallet terrain.

18/07/2024

Today we successfully finished the first day of the preliminaries at the RoboCup Rescue in Eindhoven. This clip shows how to efficiently open a door.

17/07/2024

Tomorrow will be the first day of the preliminaries at the RoboCup in Eindhoven. After some initial troubles with our hardware, we had a successful last preparation day and are now ready for the competition.

For the first time, we managed to traverse the steep stairs fully autonomously!

09/07/2023

We were successful at the RoboCup Rescue World Championship in Bordeaux and won the 2nd place in the overall scoring! Additionally, we won the awards for Best in Class Autonomy, Best Team Description Paper as well as the Technology Challenge Award.

08/07/2023

Some more impressions of the RoboCup Rescue Preliminaries

08/07/2023

Today was the final day of the preliminaries and also the day of the semi-finals. We qualified and participated in very challenging missions that combined multiple arenas into a big scenario. We faced a lot of technical difficulties but still managed to qualify for the finals, currently on 3rd place right behind Team Quix.

For the first time, we could traverse the challenging pallet hurdle terrain autonomously.

07/07/2023

In the second day of the preliminaries, we successfully performed the challenging "Crossing Ramps" arena fully autonomously. We also showcased advanced autonomous assistance functions in degraded network conditions during the new technology challenge.

06/07/2023

Today marked our first successful day in the preliminaries of the RoboCup Rescue World Championship in Bordeaux. Despite encountering initial challenges with our gripper camera, we could achieve an important milestone. For the first time in the league, we autonomously scored dexterity points!

15/06/2023

Good overview of the Enrich competition 😀

Die diesjährige Enrich ist mit beeindruckenden Teamleistungen und der Siegerehrung zu Ende gegangen. Die nächste Ausgabe des Wettbewerbs wird 2025 stattfinden.

15/06/2023

Successful Enrich 2023 - Award: Best Radiation Mapping 🏆☢️🗺

Today we used our two robots to cooperatively explore the challenging scenario in the final competition run. Our swift explorer “Scout” started first, providing an initial, rough estimate of the radiation source locations. Then “Tim”, our mobile manipulation robot, could directly head for the sources and explore them in detail. We accurately located all radiation sources, found the missing worker, created a 3D map of the environment and a radiation map (in 2D and 3D!💪) and were also able to complete two of the manipulation tasks.
Extremely narrow hallways and passages, debris, open holes and obstacles hanging from the ceiling made the exploration very challenging. Our autonomous assistance functions helped us to reliably avoid these obstacles and enabled us to operate in environments without radio connectivity.
We are proud on our performance and happy to receive the Award “Best Radiation Mapping” 🥳
Thanks to the organizers of Fraunhofer FKIE !

Deutsches Rettungsrobotik-Zentrum - DRZ e.V.
TU Darmstadt