@conference {46, title = {The SHERPA project: smart collaboration between humans and ground-aerial robots for improving rescuing activities in alpine environments}, booktitle = {Proc. of the IEEE Int. Workshop on Safety, Security and Rescue Robotics (SSRR)}, year = {2012}, address = {College Station, US}, abstract = {The goal of the paper is to present the foreseen research activity of the European project {\textquoteleft}{\textquoteleft}SHERPA{\textquoteright}{\textquoteright} whose activities will start officially on February 1th 2013. The goal of SHERPA is to develop a mixed ground and aerial robotic platform to support search and rescue activities in a real-world hostile environment, like the alpine scenario that is specifically targeted in the project. Looking into the technological platform and the alpine rescuing scenario, we plan to address a number of research topics about cognition and control. What makes the project potentially very rich from a scientific viewpoint is the heterogeneity and the capabilities to be owned by the different actors of the SHERPA system: the human rescuer is the {\textquoteleft}{\textquoteleft}busy genius{\textquoteright}{\textquoteright}, working in team with the ground vehicle, as the {\textquoteleft}{\textquoteleft}intelligent donkey{\textquoteright}{\textquoteright}, and with the aerial platforms, i.e. the {\textquoteleft}{\textquoteleft}trained wasps{\textquoteright}{\textquoteright} and {\textquoteleft}{\textquoteleft}patrolling hawks{\textquoteright}{\textquoteright}. Indeed, the research activity focuses on how the {\textquoteleft}{\textquoteleft}busy genius{\textquoteright}{\textquoteright} and the {\textquoteleft}{\textquoteleft}SHERPA animals{\textquoteright}{\textquoteright} interact and collaborate with each other, with their own features and capabilities, toward the achievement of a common goal.}, keywords = {alpine environments, autonomous aerial vehicles, busy genius, Cognitive Systems, European project, Ground and Aerial Robotics, ground-aerial robots, human rescuer, intelligent donkey, patrolling hawks, real-world hostile environment, rescuing activities, Robust Control, Search and Rescue, search and rescue activities, SHERPA project, smart collaboration, telerobotics, trained wasps}, doi = {10.1109/SSRR.2012.6523905}, author = {Marconi, L. and Melchiorri, C. and Beetz, M. and Pangercic, D. and Siegwart, R. and Leutenegger, S. and Carloni, R. and Stramigioli, S. and Bruyninckx, H. and Doherty, P. and Kleiner, A. and Lippiello, V. and Finzi, A. and Siciliano, B. and Sala, A. and Tomatis, N.} }