DIRECT · Distributed Intelligence for REsilient Collaborative roboTics in Extreme Environments
Horizon Europe — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2026-09-01 → 2030-08-31
- EU contribution
- €1,653,300
- Participants
- 19
- Scheme
- HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-SE
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Project objective
Robots hold great potential to support humans in extreme environments—such as post-disaster zones—where conditions are hazardous, unpredictable, and often lack reliable connectivity. Their capacity to operate in dangerous or inaccessible areas makes them crucial for search and rescue, damage assessment, and emergency response. Yet, conventional robotic systems often struggle in such contexts due to limited adaptability, fragile autonomy, and insufficient coordination. Challenges like degraded sensor inputs, dynamic unstructured terrains, GPS-denied environments, and constrained communications further hinder their effectiveness. While embodied AI has significantly enhanced the perception and action capabilities of individual robots, its focus has largely remained on single-agent systems. Achieving efficient multi-robot collaboration under uncertain, real-time, and bandwidth-limited conditions remains a major research frontier. The DIRECT project tackles these challenges by developing an innovative distributed machine learning framework that enables a fleet of robots to collaboratively perceive, reason, plan, and act in extreme environments.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK · COVENTRYCoordinatorUnited Kingdom
- BEIJING JIAOTONG UNIVERSITY · BEIJINGChina
- BEMAGROUP DANISMANLIK HIZMETLERI TEMSILCILIK OTOMOTIV TURIZM INSAAT SANAYI VE TICARET LIMITED SIRKETI · AnkaraTürkiye
- CROWDHELIX LIMITED · CORKIreland
- CUMUCORE OY · HelsinkiFinland
- FONDAZIONE ISTITUTO ITALIANO DI TECNOLOGIA · GenovaItaly
- ICTFICIAL OY · EspooFinland
- KHARKIV NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF RADIO ELECTRONICS · KharkivUkraine
- LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY · LoughboroughUnited Kingdom
- MCS DATALABS · BerlinGermany
- NATIONAL COLLEGE OF IRELAND · DublinIreland
- NATIONAL UNIVERSITY CORPORATION THE UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO · TOKYOJapan
- ONE SOURCE CONSULTORIA INFORMATICA LDA · CoimbraPortugal
- RANPLAN GROUP AB · STOCKHOLMSweden
- RUHR-UNIVERSITAET BOCHUM · BochumGermany
- Rahal Technology Limited · Bishop's StortfordUnited Kingdom
- Sejong University · SeoulSouth Korea
- UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI GENOVA · GENOVAItaly
- Zhejiang University · HANGZHOUChina
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union