Final of the Swarm Rescue Challenge 2024-2025: a drone swarm simulation programming competition
The initial scenario
The mission entrusted to the students is as follows: to programme the rescue of injured people, whether static or mobile, using a fleet of ten drones in order to bring them back to a rescue zone.
In this Challenge :
- The drones have no prior knowledge of the map or the location of the casualties.
- The drones are all equipped with sensors to detect casualties and obstacles, as well as GPS.
- The drones can communicate with each other, but only within a limited radius.
When moving drones around the map, certain zones present specific difficulties:
- The ‘No Com Zone’: a zone where communication between drones is impossible
- The ‘Kill Zone’: a zone where drones entering it will be destroyed
- The ‘GPS Zone’: a zone where GPS tracking of drones is impossible
The jury and assessment
The jury was chaired by David Filliat (ENSTA, CIEDS) and comprised: Emmanuel Battesti (ENSTA), Guillaume Berthé (AMIAD) and Eloïse Berthier (ENSTA, CIEDS).
The average of two assessments was used to decide between the teams in this competition:
- a technical assessment of the performance of the solutions in environments unfamiliar to the students, leading to a shortlist of ten finalist teams
- a final in-person assessment for the shortlisted teams
Marks are awarded on the basis of the solution's performance on three unfamiliar maps and the quality of the final presentation.
An international outlook
This year marks a turning point in the history of the Challenge, with the participation of teams from other countries. This year, Indian teams competed alongside French teams. The French final took place on 19 March at the X-Novation Center and the Indian final on 31 March at ENSTA.
During the Indian final, CIEDS was honoured by the presence of Mrs Suparna Pal, Counsellor(Defence Technology) at the Indian Embassy in Paris for the DRDO and representatives of the DGA.
This year the challenge was co-organized by DRDO on the Indian side to enable the participation of Indian students from various academic institutes alongside French teams. The successful completion of the current edition of the Swarm Rescue challenge illustrates the strong ties between both the countries in defense.
The results of the final
David Filliat, Scientific Director of CIEDS and Professor at ENSTA, congratulates the fourteen teams that took part in the Challenge, and especially the winning teams.
The winning teams in the French final are:
- 1st place: ISAE-Supaero - Team Marc Chanet, Albert Llonch-Majo, Miguel Gisbert-Calvo, Isabela Ferreira-Teixeira and David Cardo-Sanz
- 2nd place: Télécom Paris - Team Romain Gambardella and Romain David
- 3rd place: Télécom Paris - Team Hippolyte Verninas and Noé Vernier
The winning teams in the Indian final are:
- 1st place: IIT Madras - Team Amar Nath Singh, Tamanna Samdur, Gowsik Gurudev K. and Nirmal Kumaran M.
- 2nd place: IIT Hyderabad - Team Kevin Dsouza, Neeraj Balachandar, Shriram Hari and A. Padmaprabhan
- 3rd place: IIT Madras - Team Nandhini Sriram, Harshinni Babu and Sayantika
