CORDIS

European cities are becoming difficult places to live due to noise, pollution and security. Moreover, the average age of people living in European cities is growing and in a short period of time there will be an important community of elderly people. City Halls are becoming conscious of this problem and are studying solutions, for example by reducing the free car circulation areas. Free car areas imply a revolution in the planning of urban settings, for example, by imposing new means for transportation of goods, security issues, etc. In this project we want to analyse and test the idea of incorporating a network of robots (robots, intelligent sensors, devices and communications) in order to improve life quality in such urban areas.

The URUS project will be focussed in designing a network of robots that in a cooperative way interact with human beings and the environment for tasks of assistance, transportation of goods, and surveillance in urban areas. Specifically, our objective is to design and develop a cognitive network robot architecture that integrates cooperating urban robots, intelligent sensors, intelligent devices and communications. Among the specific technology that will be developed in the project, there will be: navigation coordination; cooperative perception; cooperative map building; task negotiation; human robot interaction; and wireless communication strategies between users (mobile phones), the environment (cameras), and the robots. Moreover, in order to make easy the tasks in the urban environment, commercial platforms that have been specifically designed to navigate and assist humans in such urban settings will be given autonomous mobility capabilities.

Proof-of concept tests of the systems developed will take place in a car free area of Barcelona. The initiative of this project comes from the European Group inside of the Research Atelier on Network Robot Systems (a European project) which is producing a Roadmap of Network Robots in Europe.