About the competition:

The SubT Challenge is aimed to revolutionize how we operate in the underground domain. Current technologies fail to provide persistent situational awareness of the diverse subterranean operating environments, including tunnels, urban underground, and cave networks. Complex underground settings present significant challenges for military and civilian first responders. The hazards vary drastically across domains that can degrade or change over time and are often too high-risk for personnel to enter. The DARPA SubT Challenge seeks novel approaches to rapidly map, navigate, and search underground environments during time-sensitive disaster response scenarios. DARPA encourages participation from multidisciplinary teams from around the world to address the autonomy, perception, networking, and mobility technologies necessary to map subsurface networks in unpredictable conditions.

Publications

1. Kamak Ebadi, Lukas Bernreiter, Harel Biggie, Gavin Catt, Yun Chang, Arghya Chatterjee, Christopher E Denniston, Simon-Pierre Deschênes, Kyle Harlow, Shehryar Khattak, Lucas Nogueira, Matteo Palieri, Pavel Petráček, Matěj Petrlík, Andrzej Reinke, Vít Krátký, Shibo Zhao, Ali-akbar Agha-mohammadi, Kostas Alexis, Christoffer Heckman, Kasra Khosoussi, Navinda Kottege, Benjamin Morrell, Marco Hutter, Fred Pauling, François Pomerleau, Martin Saska, Sebastian Scherer, Roland Siegwart, Jason L Williams and Luca Carlone. Present and Future of SLAM in Extreme Environments: The DARPA SubT Challenge. IEEE Transactions on Robotics 40():936-959, 2024. PDF, DOI BibTeX

   @article{ebadi2024slam,
   	author = "Ebadi, Kamak and Bernreiter, Lukas and Biggie, Harel and Catt, Gavin and Chang, Yun and Chatterjee, Arghya and Denniston, Christopher E. and Deschênes, Simon-Pierre and Harlow, Kyle and Khattak, Shehryar and Nogueira, Lucas and Palieri, Matteo and Petráček, Pavel and Petrlík, Matěj and Reinke, Andrzej and Krátký, Vít and Zhao, Shibo and Agha-mohammadi, Ali-akbar and Alexis, Kostas and Heckman, Christoffer and Khosoussi, Kasra and Kottege, Navinda and Morrell, Benjamin and Hutter, Marco and Pauling, Fred and Pomerleau, François and Saska, Martin and Scherer, Sebastian and Siegwart, Roland and Williams, Jason L. and Carlone, Luca",
   	journal = "IEEE Transactions on Robotics",
   	title = "Present and Future of SLAM in Extreme Environments: The DARPA SubT Challenge",
   	year = 2024,
   	volume = 40,
   	number = "",
   	pages = "936-959",
   	doi = "10.1109/TRO.2023.3323938",
   	pdf = "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2208.01787"
   }
   

2. Matej Petrlik, Pavel Petracek, Vit Kratky, Tomas Musil, Yurii Stasinchuk, Matous Vrba, Tomas Baca, Daniel Hert, Martin Pecka, Tomas Svoboda and Martin Saska. UAVs Beneath the Surface: Cooperative Autonomy for Subterranean Search and Rescue in DARPA SubT. Field Robotics 3:1–68, January 2023. PDF, DOI BibTeX

   @article{petrlik2023uavs,
   	author = "Petrlik, Matej and Petracek, Pavel and Kratky, Vit and Musil, Tomas and Stasinchuk, Yurii and Vrba, Matous and Baca, Tomas and Hert, Daniel and Pecka, Martin and Svoboda, Tomas and Saska, Martin",
   	journal = "Field Robotics",
   	title = "{UAVs Beneath the Surface: Cooperative Autonomy for Subterranean Search and Rescue in DARPA SubT}",
   	year = 2023,
   	volume = 3,
   	pages = "1--68",
   	doi = "https://doi.org/10.55417/fr.2023001",
   	month = "January",
   	pdf = "https://fieldrobotics.net/Field_Robotics/Volume_3_files/Vol3_01.pdf"
   }
   

3. T Musil, Matej Petrlik and Martin Saska. SphereMap: Dynamic Multi-Layer Graph Structure for Rapid Safety-Aware UAV Planning. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters 7(4):11007-11014, 2022. PDF, DOI BibTeX

   @article{musil2022spheremap,
   	author = "T. Musil and Petrlik, Matej and Saska, Martin",
   	journal = "IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters",
   	title = "{SphereMap: Dynamic Multi-Layer Graph Structure for Rapid Safety-Aware UAV Planning}",
   	year = 2022,
   	volume = 7,
   	number = 4,
   	pages = "11007-11014",
   	pdf = "data/papers/musil2022ral.pdf",
   	doi = "10.1109/LRA.2022.3195194"
   }
   

4. T Roucek, M Pecka, P Cizek, T Petricek, J Bayer, V Salansky, T Azayev, D Hert, M Petrlik, T Baca, V Spurny, V Kratky, P Petracek, D Baril, M Vaidis, V Kubelka, F Pomerleau, J Faigl, K Zimmermann, M Saska, T Svoboda and T Krajnik. System for multi-robotic exploration of underground environments CTU-CRAS-NORLAB in the DARPA Subterranean Challenge. Field Robotics 2:1779–1818, 2022. PDF BibTeX

   @article{roucek2022darpa,
   	author = "Roucek, T. and Pecka, M. and Cizek, P. and Petricek, T. and Bayer, J. and Salansky, V. and Azayev, T. and Hert, D. and Petrlik, M. and Baca, T. and Spurny, V. and Kratky, V. and Petracek, P. and Baril, D. and Vaidis, M. and Kubelka, V. and Pomerleau, F. and Faigl, J. and Zimmermann, K. and Saska, M. and Svoboda, T. and Krajnik, T.",
   	title = "System for multi-robotic exploration of underground environments CTU-CRAS-NORLAB in the DARPA Subterranean Challenge",
   	journal = "Field Robotics",
   	pages = "1779--1818",
   	type = "article",
   	volume = 2,
   	year = 2022,
   	pdf = "http://fieldrobotics.net/Field_Robotics/Volume_2_files/Vol2_55.pdf"
   }
   

5. Pavel Petracek, Vit Kratky, Matej Petrlik, Tomas Baca, Radim Kratochvil and Martin Saska. Large-Scale Exploration of Cave Environments by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters 6(4):7596-7603, October 2021. PDF, DOI BibTeX

   @article{petracek2021caves,
   	author = "Petracek, Pavel and Kratky, Vit and Petrlik, Matej and Baca, Tomas and Kratochvil, Radim and Saska, Martin",
   	journal = "IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters",
   	title = "Large-Scale Exploration of Cave Environments by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles",
   	year = 2021,
   	volume = 6,
   	number = 4,
   	pages = "7596-7603",
   	month = "October",
   	doi = "10.1109/LRA.2021.3098304",
   	pdf = "data/papers/ral2021petracek/petracek2021caves.pdf"
   }
   

6. Vít Krátký, Pavel Petráček, Tomáš Báča and Martin Saska. An autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle system for fast exploration of large complex indoor environments. Journal of Field Robotics 38(8):1036-1058, May 2021. URL PDF, DOI BibTeX

   @article{kratky2021exploration,
   	author = "Krátký, Vít and Petráček, Pavel and Báča, Tomáš and Saska, Martin",
   	title = "An autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle system for fast exploration of large complex indoor environments",
   	journal = "Journal of Field Robotics",
   	year = 2021,
   	month = "May",
   	volume = 38,
   	number = 8,
   	pages = "1036-1058",
   	keywords = "aerial robotics, exploration, extreme environments, GPS-denied operation, planning",
   	doi = "https://doi.org/10.1002/rob.22021",
   	pdf = "https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/rob.22021",
   	url = "https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/rob.22021"
   }
   

7. M Petrlík, T Báča, D Heřt, M Vrba, T Krajník and M Saska. A Robust UAV System for Operations in a Constrained Environment. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RAL) 5(2):2169-2176, 2020. URL PDF, DOI BibTeX

   @article{petrlik2020ral,
   	author = "M. {Petrl\'{i}k} and T. {B\'{a}\v{c}a} and D. {He\v{r}t} and M. {Vrba} and T. {Krajn\'{i}k} and M. {Saska}",
   	journal = "IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RAL)",
   	title = "A Robust UAV System for Operations in a Constrained Environment",
   	volume = 5,
   	number = 2,
   	pages = "2169-2176",
   	year = 2020,
   	keywords = "Aerial Systems;Perception and Autonomy;Search and Rescue Robots;Robotics in Hazardous Fields",
   	doi = "10.1109/LRA.2020.2970980",
   	issn = "2377-3774",
   	url = "https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8979150",
   	pdf = "data/papers/petrlik2020ral.pdf"
   }
   

8. T Rouček, M Pecka, P Čížek, T Petříček, J Bayer, V Šalanský, D Heřt, M Petrlík, T Báča, V Spurný, F Pomerleau, V Kubelka, J Faigl, K Zimmermann, M Saska, T Svoboda and T Krajník. DARPA Subterranean Challenge: Multi-robotic Exploration of Underground Environments. In Modelling and Simulation for Autonomous Systems. 2019, 274–290. URL PDF, DOI BibTeX

   @inproceedings{roucek2019mesas,
   	title = "DARPA Subterranean Challenge: Multi-robotic Exploration of Underground Environments",
   	author = "T. Rou\v{c}ek and M. Pecka and P. \v{C}\'{i}\v{z}ek and T. Pet\v{r}\'{i}\v{c}ek and J. Bayer and V. \v{S}alansk\'{y} and D. He\v{r}t and M. Petrl\'{i}k and T. B\'{a}\v{c}a and V. Spurn\'{y} and F. Pomerleau and V. Kubelka and J Faigl and K. Zimmermann and M. Saska and T. Svoboda and T. Krajn\'{i}k",
   	booktitle = "Modelling and Simulation for Autonomous Systems",
   	year = 2019,
   	pages = "274--290",
   	isbn = "978-3-030-43890-6",
   	doi = "10.1007/978-3-030-43890-6_22",
   	url = "https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-43890-6_22",
   	pdf = "data/papers/mesas2019darpa.pdf"
   }
   

Media coverage of our DARPA SubT Challenge participation: