New Demo Competition for 2026 Nationals: Rescue Simulation
Take your rescue robotics skills into a virtual world at the 2026 RoboCup Junior Australian National Championships!
As a special addition to the 2026 National Championships, RoboCup Junior Australia will host a demonstration competition for RoboCupJunior Rescue Simulation.
Rescue Simulation is an international RoboCupJunior competition in which teams program an autonomous virtual robot to explore a hazardous environment, identify victims and produce a map that can assist human rescue teams. Unlike Rescue Line and Rescue Maze, the entire challenge takes place inside a computer simulation—so teams can tackle complex robotics problems without needing to build a physical robot.
Who should get involved?
Rescue Simulation is ideal for students who:
- Enjoy programming and autonomous robotics
- Want to explore mapping, navigation and computer vision
- Are interested in Rescue Line or Rescue Maze but would like a new challenge
- Want to develop more advanced software, algorithms or artificial intelligence
- Do not have access to the hardware needed to construct a physical competition robot
The challenge is particularly suitable for students looking to extend their programming skills and experience a competition currently offered at the international RoboCupJunior level.
Teams do not need to transport or construct a physical robot. Instead, they develop the software that controls a virtual autonomous robot inside the Webots-Erebus simulation platform.
About Rescue Simulation
In Rescue Simulation, a virtual robot is deployed into a simulated hazardous environment containing rooms, obstacles and challenging terrain.
The robot must operate autonomously to:
- Explore and navigate the environment
- Avoid obstacles and difficult terrain
- Search for and identify wall tokens representing victims and hazards
- Record the locations of identified tokens
- Produce a map of the explored environment
- Return useful information to the simulated human rescue team
The competition shares many concepts with RoboCupJunior Rescue Maze while introducing additional terrain, mapping and software challenges. It also incorporates elements inspired by the RoboCupRescue Major competition.
Why a demonstration competition?
The 2026 event will be run as a demo competition, giving Australian students and mentors an opportunity to experience Rescue Simulation and help us explore how the challenge could operate within RoboCup Junior Australia in future years.
This is a chance to try something new, compete against other Australian teams and provide feedback that will help shape the future of Rescue Simulation in Australia.
As a demonstration competition, some arrangements may differ from the full international competition. Australian participation details, competition requirements and any event-specific modifications will be published before Nationals.
Getting started
Teams can begin by reviewing the official RoboCupJunior Rescue Simulation information, downloading Webots-Erebus and reading the 2026 international rules:
Learn about RoboCupJunior Rescue Simulation
The official Rescue Simulation website includes the simulator, documentation and resources to help teams begin developing and testing their controllers.
No physical rescue robot is required—just a computer, a team and a willingness to take on a new programming challenge!
Registration
Teams will be able to register for the Rescue Simulation demo competition as part of the 2026 RoboCup Junior Australian National Championships.
Further details about registration, eligibility, competition format and submission requirements will be announced shortly.