Search and rescue in disasters is an extremely comprehensive test-bed for research in the multi-agent behavior simulation arena.
The RoboCupRescue is a simulation project that combines human behaviors and various disaster domains such as earthquakes, fires, logistics or traffic jams, and presents them as a coherent scene. RoboCupRescue involves a very large number of heterogeneous agents in a hostile context and has been undertaken to put large‑scale simulations in use in the domain of search and rescue for large‑scale disasters.
RoboCup‑Rescue simulator was designed based on Kobe-Awaji, 1995 Japan's earthquake, where over 6000 citizens were killed, 300000 injured and led to property damage exceeding 300 billion dollars.
Soon after the large earthquake, buildings collapsed, many civilians were buried in the collapsed buildings, fires propagated, and it became difficult for agents to move because roads were blocked by debris.
In the aftermath of Kobe’s earthquake, information about the disaster was not communicated immediately due to damage of the information infrastructure. Roads and open areas, which had been designed as fire breaks, actually became combustion pathways allowing collapsed wooden structures to be exposed to air.
Efforts to fight the rapidly spreading fires were hindered by disrupted water supplies. Rescue teams could not reach the affected areas due to fire, damaged roadways and the flow of refugees. Accurate information as to where rescue teams were was also lacking. Aerial surveillance by helicopter finally provided that information but at the cost of drowning out the faint sounds of victims trapped in collapsed buildings.