News & Events

Released in 2017 by the ICARUS consortium, the book describes in detail the methodology applied to develop new SAR tools as well as their corresponding commercial applications. The book also provides an excellent summary of the results of the project in 266 pages divided into 10 chapters.

One year after having demonstrated the 81-hours continuous solar-powered flight that is still the current world record in flight endurance for all aicrafts, the AtlantikSolar UAV has complteted its next milestone by demonstrating the first-ever fully-autonomous solar-powered perpetual flight in a 26-hours Search-and-Rescue mission. 

On the 9th and 10th of July 2015, ICARUS project partners simulated a maritime crisis management scenario at the Navy Base of Alfeite (Almada) in Portugal. Watch the new video of the event prepared by our partner INESC (Institute for Systems and Computer Engineering of Porto):

The ICARUS consortium is pleased to announce the publication of its newsletter describing the major project achivements for the past 6 months, including: - ICARUS partcipation to euRathlon (September 2015); - ICARUS land demonstration in Marche-en-Famenne, Belgium (September 2015); - First-ever legal RPAS flight in Brussels performed by the ICARUS partners (May 2015); - ICARUS maritime demonstration in Alfeite, Portugal (July 2015).

Several ICARUS consortium partners successfully participated in the euRathlon 2015 Challenge which took place in Piombino (Italy) from 17 to 25 September 2015. This year, the ICARUS team which ranked second of the overall competition was composed of Eurecat (Spain), IMM (Poland), INESC (Portugal), Integrasys (Spain), RMA (Belgium), SPACE Apps (Belgium) and UKL (Germany). Additional ICARUS partners were also present in Italy to support and help the team, including CINAV (Portugal), CMRE (Italy) and SpaceTec Partners (Belgium).  

On the 9th and 10th of July 2015, ICARUS project partners simulated a maritime crisis management scenario at the Navy Base of Alfeite (Almada) in Portugal.

The 5th European Civil Protection Forum took place in Brussels on 6 and 7 May 2015, featuring a conference as well as an indoor exhibition and an outdoor demonstration of RPAS and drones.

Fourth of September 2015 will see the final field trials of the robotic tools of the FP7 ICARUS Project, at Marche-en-Famenne, Belgium. The field trials will showcase the ICARUS robotic tools, which have been developed for the Urban Search and Rescue scenario, demonstrating their capabilities to assist “human” SAR teams in the aftermath of a major disaster such as an earthquake. Marche-en-Famenne is the training ground of the heavy SAR team of B-FAST, a member of the ICARUS consortium. The presentations will be delivered in English.

  A new study, commissioned by the American Red Cross, calls drones one of the most promising and powerful new technologies to improve disaster response and relief efforts.

Following the earthquake that happened saturday 25/04/2015 in Nepal, Belgium has decided to send a  B-fast team  (Belgian First Aid & support team) composed of 45 people. The B-FAST team, which is a full ICARUS partner, will be executing urban search and rescue operations in Nepal. No unmanned systems have been packed by the team for this operation.

In December 2014, the Belgian Council of Ministers agreed on the deployment of the B-FAST mobile laboratory to Guinea to help fight the propagation of the Ebola epidemic. The Council Ministers authorized B-FAST, known for its expertise in the coordination of humanitarian aid, to facilitate the deployment of the mobile laboratory.

The Royal Military Academy of Belgium (RMA), the Institute for Systems and Computer Engineering of Porto (INESC) and the Portuguese Navy´s Research Centre (CINAV) have joined forces to organise the 8th International Advanced Robotics Programme (IARP) Workshop on Robotics for Risky Environment (RISE), which will take place on the 28th and 29th of January 2015 in Lisbon, Portugal.

The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry (DG ENTR) has invited the ICARUS project to participate in the 2014 Community Protection Expo (CP-EXPO) that will take place in Genoa from the 9th to the 11th of December, under the aegis of the Italian Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The aim of the event is to provide an up-to-date overview of the technologies, systems and solutions available for Civil Protection and to promote international debate and cooperation among stakeholders from the private and public sectors in the Security domain.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) has released a policy paper on "Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Humanitarian Response" which analyses the state-of-the-art of UAV technology and outlines its potential application in the fields of disaster response and humanitarian aid. The ICARUS project was featured in the paper as an example of promising future use of UAVs in the context of search and rescue operations.

ICARUS UAV operational deployment presented at the INSARAG Team Leaders Meeting   Representatives of the ICARUS project participated in the INSARAG (International Search and Rescue Advisory Group) Team Leaders meeting, which

Representatives of the ICARUS project gathered on the premises of the Camp Roi Albert military base between the 8th and the 12th of September, 2014 in Marche-en-Famenne in Belgium to perform field tests on autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs). These platforms can be used in disaster-stricken and crisis-affected areas following a large-scale incident for the detection of survivors and to provide maps that can assist in maximising the efficiency of Search and Rescue (SAR) operations.

The TIRAMISU and ICARUS consortia have released a video showcasing their joint contribution to the assessment of the damage caused by the Bosnia-Herzegovina 2014 floods. The mission was deployed at the request of the Belgian First Aid and Support Team (B-FAST), with the purpose of identifying the most appropriate locations for the implementation of relief operations, through the use of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV).

The TRADR project (www.tradr-project.eu) is organising a summer school at the Czech Technical University in Prague (hosted by the Center for Machine Perception, http://cmp.felk.cvut.cz) from the 29-31 July, 2014. The summer school focuses on robotic perception and reasoning, and is related to long-term multi-robot missions and involved robotic manipulation, which is one of the main subjects of TRADR research activities.

Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia, as well as parts of Croatia, have been hit by the worst flooding on record following torrential downpours over the last few weeks. The Belgian First Aid and Support Team (B-FAST), one of the ICARUS project partners, has been deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina to assist with relief operations. As part of the EU Civil Protection mechanism, along with the B-FAST team the Belgian Royal Military Academy (RMA), coordinator of the ICARUS project, has posted an expert in robotics accompanied by an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) in the flood-affected area.

Photo credit: EC/ECHO/EEAS/EU Delegation BiH

Brussels, Belgium - May 19, 2014 - ICARUS and TIRAMISU, two Research and Development projects funded by the European Commission's DG Enterprise and Industry, have joined forces to participate to relief efforts in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in the aftermath of the most severe natural disaster the region has faced in the last century.

A workshop jointly organised by the euRathlon and ARCAS (Aerial Robotics Cooperative Assembly System) projects will take place from the 15th to the 18th of June 2014  at the Center for Advanced Aerospace Technologies (CATEC) in Seville, Spain. The four-day course is targeted at postgraduate and PhD students, researchers, engineers and other stakeholders in the domain of Robotics, and is designed to provide participants with the opportunity to gain practical experience of using outdoor autonomous robots in a range of different domains.

The ICARUS consortium just released the video of its Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) test campaign which took place in Zurich, Switzerland in November 2013. The video of the test is available here.

The Belgian team for immediate emergency relief, B-FAST (Belgian First Aid and Support Team), the ICARUS project reference user for Urban SAR, has recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. To commemorate the ten years since the organisation was established, the most recognisable statue in Belgium, the Manneken Pis, was dressed in the official B-FAST uniform. B-FAST, marked its first decade of providing assistance to disaster victims across the world by organising the dressing the nation’s most famous monument, the Manneken Pis, in the official B-FAST uniform.

DARPA RoboticsDARPA Robotics Trials will be h. This year's DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) Trials will be held in Florida on December 20-21, 2013. These trials are designed to foster the development of robots with capabilities that enable them to operate in hazardous situations, allowing relief agencies to reduce the risk of personnel being harmed during rescue operations.

Haiyan, by some accounts the strongest tropical cyclone to make landfall ever recorded, hit the Philippines on November 7th 2013 with wind speeds of up to 315 km/h. The cyclone caused devastation in the country, particularly on the islands of Samar and Leyte, where estimates of fatalities range from 2,000 to 10,000 people  in the city of Tacloban alone.

Insect-like flying rescue robot that can bounce off trees and buildings has been presented by its creators.

The EURATHLON 2013 Unmanned Ground Robot (UGV) competition took place from 23 to 27 September 2013 in Berchtesgaden, Germany. Engineers, computer scientists and technicians from all over Europe were able to test their Robots in simulated real-life conditions during this event:
Five different scenarios were set up to showcase the capabilities of the robots in real situations and 14 teams participated.

First European Unmanned Search and Rescue End-Users' Conference Why? To discuss how your operational requirements can be fulfilled by the latest technological advances and to participate in live demonstrations. When? 10th - 11th of February 2014. Where? Belgian Royal Military Academy Conference Centre, 8 Rue Hobbema, Brussels, Belgium.

Several ICARUS partners gathered in La Spezia, on the premises of the NATO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation in order to test the newly developed Unmanned Maritime Systems that are being developed to support Search and Rescue operations in marine environments.

The Spanish Aviation Safety Agency (Agencia Estatal de Seguridad Aérea - AESA) has organised the first meeting between the public and private sectors to discuss the forthcoming Spanish Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) regulation. The meeting took place on the 30th of May at the offices of the Spanish Ministry of Development.

The Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA),within the American Defense Department, organises the competition : DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC).

The European RPAS Steering Group (ERSG) handed over the Roadmap for the Integration of civil Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems into the European Aviation system to the European Commission on the occasion of the Paris Air Show on 20th June 2013.

The objective of the workshop is to facilitate exchange of information on current and recently completed research and technology work-strands in the area of Unmanned Maritime Systems under EDA and related civil applications of UMS under FP7, in particular ICT – driven  projects  in  DG

On May 4th, a train freight crashed in the Belgian municipality Wetteren. The train was transporting dangerous chemical products which exploded, leading to a release of toxic substances in the air. Dozens of people were injured and one person died from the toxic fumes. 

More than 200 killed, 11,000 injured and thousands of homes damaged in a strong 6,6 magnitude earthquake near Ya’an Sichuan province on April 20, 2013. Troops of the Chengdu Military Area Command (MAC) of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) continue the Search and Rescue work in Ya’an quake-hit areas. The digital journal People’s Daily Online has dedicated an article to the three dimensional Search and Rescue work carried out by these troops. Here you can read the entire article:

Three partners of the ICARUS project will take part in the upcoming Eurathlon competition (http://www.eurathlon2013.eu/): - Allen-Vanguard Ltd will participate with (a.o.) the Digital Vanguard vehicle, used as an end platform in ICARUS - Space Applications Services N.V. will participate with the Milou vehicle, used as a validation platform in ICARUS - INESC will participate with a ground platform, whereas they are focusing on marine platforms in ICARUS

EURATHLON is a new robot competition supported by the European Commission. The vision of EURATHLON is to provide real-world robotics challenges that will test the intelligence and autonomy of outdoor/off-road robots in demanding mock disaster-response scenarios.

  The 17th annual RoboCup International Symposium will be held in conjunction with RoboCup 2013 from Monday 24th through Sunday 30th June 2013 in Eindhoven (The Netherlands).

The 7th edition of the IARP (International Advanced Robotics Programme) workshop - Robotics for Risky Environment and Extreme Robotics- will be organised, with the support of the Climbing and Walking Robotics Association (CLAWAR), in the Russian State Scientific Centre for Robotics and Technical Cybernetics of Saint-Petersburg (Russia) from 1st until 3rd October 2013.

The European Commission funds more than 100 robotics research projects supported by around €600 million in the last five years. They address topics such as scene and situation understanding, perceiving the world through artificial senses (computer vision, haptics etc) and physical behaviour such as grasping objects or locomotion in everyday spaces. Europe's robotics industry is highly successful, accounting for about a quarter of the global production in industrial robotics and 50% market share in professional service robotics.

The ICARUS project will participate in the IROS’12 Workshop on Robots and Sensors integration in future rescue Information system (ROSIN '12).

  The Administration des Services de Secours (ASS) together with the emergency.lu project and the INSARAG  Working group DACH will organise a workshop entitled “Beyond emergency.lu, service collaboration and extension” next 12th  and 13th  June at the Civil Protection School of Schimpach (Luxembourg).

Scientists of the Navy's new robotics laboratory, based in the nation's capital are stepping into the desert and rainforest to run experiments on autonomous systems without having to set foot outside the Navy's new robotics laboratory, officials said April 2. The Laboratory for Autonomous Systems Research (LASR), located at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington D.C., is the first addition to NRL's 130-acre campus in nearly a decade.