IIIT bags 3rd prize in RoboRescue contest

Hyderabad-based International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), the only Indian team to participate in the RoboRescue competition organised by RoboCup, an international joint venture which promotes research in robotics, artificial intelligence and so on, has been awarded the third prize in the contest.

Iranian teams won both the first and second prizes among the 35 countries which participated.

The contest involved rescuing a city which has just suffered an earthquake. This involves using a multi-agent system to extinguish the fire, clear the roads and rescue the buried civilians.

An agent is an autonomous entity which senses the environment, analyses and takes decisions followed by actions. So, the job for the teams was to develop artificial intelligence of the agents so that they perform the rescue operations better than the other teams.

Addressing mediapersons here on Monday, Rajeev Sangal, director, IIIT, said, "Our team, Kshitij, the participation of which was sponsored by Infosys, has been successful in this competition and we are looking forward to participating in the contest in the next year as well."

This year, RoboCup was held in Japan. IIIT's team also qualified to participate in RoboSoccer 3D, where institutes develop their own software agents to play soccer in a virtual field.