Search-and-Rescue Robotics

Ask about this topic

Overview

Search-and-rescue robotics studies how aerial, ground, aquatic, and soft robots can search disaster sites, locate people, and support tasks such as inspection, evacuation, or vital-sign measurement. Systems combine visual, depth, acoustic, and radio sensing with mapping and planning methods such as frontier exploration, informative path planning, and multi-robot task allocation. Researchers also use language-guided models, learned policies, and human-robot interaction to adapt robot behavior and coordinate teams in changing environments. A central challenge is making these systems reliable and safe beyond controlled tests, where clutter, hazards, limited communication, unfamiliar terrain, and failures in spatial memory can undermine efficient search.

Latest papers

CardsList

34 papers4 papers in the last four weeks, down 33% on the four weeks before. 0.0% of all new papers.

  1. TriSAR-3D and PaintFusion: A Novel Trimodal LiDAR-RGB-Thermal Dataset and Method for 3D Person Detection in Search and Rescue

    Oct 15, 2026Markus Kramer, Jan Wachenfeld, Oskar von Stryk3D Object DetectionMultimodal Object Detection

    The authors are with the SIM Group, Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany.

  2. BGC-Nav: Cross-Altitude Multi-UAV Collaborative Navigation via Belief-Guided Coupling

    Oct 10, 2026Jiuwu Hao, Yueyang Wu, Liguo Sun +3UAV NavigationMulti-Agent Collaboration

    Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences · School of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences

  3. Traversability-Aware Cooperative Path Planning for Human-UGV Casualty Evacuation

    Oct 5, 2026Kristian Dalland, Prithvi Poddar, Souma Chowdhury +2Multi-Robot Motion PlanningHuman-Robot Collaboration

    Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University at Buffalo, NY 14260, USA · Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University at Buffalo, NY 14260, USA

  4. Semantic Map Sharing and Capability-Aware Coverage Planning for AI-Native 6G Robotic Coordination

    Sep 29, 2026Abdulqader Dhafer, Qi Wang, Zhou Daniel HaoMulti-Robot Motion PlanningMulti-Robot Exploration

    School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, University of Leicester, UK · DANiLab, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

  5. Towards Intent-Aware Human-Robot Teaming: A Platform for Search-and-Rescue Operations

    Sep 22, 2026Rohith Prem Maben, Ayesha Jena, Björn Olofsson +4Human-Robot CollaborationSearch-and-Rescue Robotics

    Dept. of Aviation and Aeronautical Sciences, Lund Univ., Sweden · Dept. of Computer Science, Lund Univ., Sweden · Dept. of Automatic Control, Lund Univ., Sweden +1

  6. AcousticDiffusion: Semantically Conditioned Audio-Guided Diffusion Policy for Search-and-Rescue Assistance

    Sep 18, 2026Iana Zhura, Didar Seyidov, Dmitrii Plotnikov +3Robot NavigationSearch-and-Rescue Robotics

    Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Moscow, Russia

  7. HEROIC: Heterogeneous Evidential Reasoning for Open-Vocabulary Identification and Cross-Robot Collaboration

    Sep 17, 2026Mihir Chauhan, Aarav Jain, Addison Zucek +3Multi-Robot ExplorationMulti-Robot Coordination

    IDEAS Lab, Department of Computer Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA · DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory, Adelphi, MD, USA

  8. SPROUT: The Open-Source Soft Growing Robot for Search and Rescue

    Sep 15, 2026Antonio Alvarez Valdivia, Ciera McFarland, Robert Reeve +5RoboticsSearch-and-Rescue Robotics

    Lincoln Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lexington, Massachusetts, USA · University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, USA · Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA

  9. Language-Guided Terrain-Adaptive Neural MPC for Autonomous Traversal of Articulated Tracked Robots

    Sep 11, 2026Zhenfeng Gan, Yanbo Chen, Lirong Che +3Constrained Motion PlanningLanguage Model-Based Control

  10. TriSAR: Task Coordination and Collision Avoidance for Aerial Robot Teams in Disaster Response

    Sep 1, 2026Aditya Anil Kapile, Pedro Machado, Isibor Kennedy IhianleAerial RoboticsMulti-Robot Coordination

    School of Science and Technology, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, United Kingdom

  11. A 360-Degree Vision Dataset for Learning Yaw Control on GPS-Denied Micro-UAVs in Disaster-Response-Relevant Environments

    Aug 20, 2026Niklas Voigt, Hartmut SurmannUAV NavigationVision-Based Robot Control

    Robotics Laboratory Westphalian University of Applied Sciences (WHS) Gelsenkirchen, Germany

  12. MITE-Net: SWaP-Optimized 4K Video Tiny Target Perception for Embodied Edge SAR

    Aug 16, 2026Mingshuo Xu, Mu Hua, Jigen Peng +2Small Object DetectionEfficient Object Detection

    School of Mathematics and Computing Science, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK · Machine Life and Intelligence Research Center, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou 510006, China

  13. Deployment Is Not Destiny: Robot Recomposition in the Field with Unseen Software, Hardware, and Compute Payloads

    Aug 11, 2026Steven Swanbeck, Jonathan Salfity, Jeffery Gunawan +3Modular RoboticsRobotics

    Texas Robotics and the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA

  14. Situation Aware Frontier Prioritization for Quadruped Search and Rescue

    Aug 3, 2026Kevin Farias, Santiago Martin, Barbara Flores +5Exploration-Exploitation TradeoffRobotics

    Robotics and AI Lab, Technological University of Uruguay, Rivera, Uruguay

  15. Distributed Acoustic Localization Array Deployed Using a Soft Everting Vine Robot

    Jul 22, 2026Sebastian Lorca Godoy, Ciera McFarland, Michael Val +3Direction-of-Arrival EstimationRobotics

    Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA. · Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, 8320165 Santiago, Región Metropolitana, Chile. · Lincoln Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lexington, MA 02421, USA.

  16. Design and Control of the "QuadBoat": A Quadruped Surface Vehicle for Drowning Rescue

    Jul 15, 2026Lianxin Zhang, Yihan Huang, Huihuan QianMobile RoboticsRobotics

    Shenzhen Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Society (AIRS), Shenzhen, 518129, Guangdong, China. · School of Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (CUHK-Shenzhen), Shenzhen, 518172, Guangdong, China. · Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, 07030, New Jersey, United States.

  17. TRISTAR: Triple-Signal Stair Recognition and Vision-Only Indoor Navigation for Search-and-Rescue Micro-UAVs

    Jul 4, 2026Octavian Gîngu, Stelian SpînuRobot NavigationUAV Navigation

    Military Technical Academy “Ferdinand I”, Bucharest, Romania

  18. Improving Human-Robot Teamwork in Urban Search and Rescue Through Episodic Memory of Prior Collaboration

    Jun 17, 2026Taewoon Kim, Emma van Zoelen, Mark NeerincxEpisodic MemoryRobotics

    HumemAI, The Netherlands · Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands · TNO, The Netherlands

  19. DIFF-IPPO: Diffusion-Based Informative Path Planning with Open-Vocabulary Belief Maps

    Jun 15, 2026Sausar Karaf, Oleg Sautenkov, Mikhail Martynov +1Diffusion-Based PlanningInformative Path Planning

    CDE, Skoltech, Bolshoy Boulevard, 30, bld. 1, Moscow 121205, Russia

  20. Market-Based Replanning for Safety-Critical UAV Swarms in Search and Rescue Missions

    Jun 1, 2026Luiz Giacomossi, Andrea Haglund, Claire Namatovu +6Aerial RoboticsSwarm Robotics

    Mälardalen University (MDU) Västerås, Sweden

  21. RescueBench: Can Embodied Agents Save Lives in the Wild ?

    Jun 1, 2026Kui Wu, Beiyu Guo, Hao Chen +6Agent MemoryEmbodied Navigation

    1Beihang University · 5ATEC2025 Challenge Committee · 4City University of Macau +2

  22. ESARBench: A Benchmark for Agentic UAV Embodied Search and Rescue

    May 2, 2026Daoxuan Zhang, Ping Chen, Jianyi Zhou +1Aerial RoboticsRobotics Simulation

    Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen

  23. VULCAN: Vision-Language-Model Enhanced Multi-Agent Cooperative Navigation for Indoor Fire-Disaster Response

    Apr 14, 2026Shengding Liu, Qiben YanSearch-and-Rescue RoboticsMulti-Robot Coordination

    Computer Science & Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

  24. "Take Me Home, Wi-Fi Drone": A Drone-based Wireless System for Wilderness Search and Rescue

    Apr 10, 2026Weiying Hou, Luca Jiang-Tao Yu, Chenshu WuSearch-and-Rescue RoboticsWireless Localization

    The University of Hong Kong

  25. EMMa: End-Effector Stability-Oriented Mobile Manipulation for Tracked Rescue Robots

    Apr 9, 2026Yifei Wang, Hao Zhang, Jidong Huang +2Mobile ManipulationRobot Motion Generation

  26. Intelligent Three Level Learning Architecture for Autonomous UAV Swarms in Search and Rescue

    Apr 9, 2026Oleksii BychkovSwarm RoboticsCognitive Architectures for AI Agents

    Department of Program Systems and Technologies, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine

  27. An Integrated Soft Robotic System for Measuring Vital Signs in Search and Rescue Environments

    Apr 1, 2026Jorge Francisco García-Samartín, Christyan Cruz Ulloa, Andrés Sánchez-Silva +2Heart Rate EstimationSearch-and-Rescue Robotics

    Centro de Automática y Robótica (UPM - CSIC), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Calle José Gutiérrez Abascal 2, 28006, Madrid, Spain

  28. Learning Semantic Priorities for Autonomous Target Search

    Mar 31, 2026Max Lodel, Nils Wilde, Robert Babuška +1Search-and-Rescue Robotics

    Department of Cognitive Robotics (CoR), Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands · CIIRC, Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic

  29. Wukong-Omni: Design, Modeling and Control of a Multi-mode Robot for Air, Land, and Underwater Exploration with All-in-One Propulsion Unit

    Mar 3, 2026Yufan Liu, Rixi Yu, Junjie Li +7Robot LocomotionRobotic Control

    School of Automation, Guandong University of Technology, Guangzhou, China · School of Electromechanical Engineering, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, China · Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China

  30. ForestPersons: A Large-Scale Dataset for Under-Canopy Missing Person Detection

    Mar 3, 2026Deokyun Kim, Jeongjun Lee, Jungwon Choi +6Object DetectionSearch-and-Rescue Robotics

    Autonomous UAV Research Section, ETRI · Kim Jaechul Graduate School of AI, KAIST