What is Erebus?

Erebus is a robot simulation competition environment. You develop a controller for a robot that autonomously explores a maze, finds and identifies wall tokens (letter victims and cognitive targets), avoids obstacles and traps, and builds a map of the environment.

It is built on Webots, a robotic simulation platform designed for professional use and widely used in industry, education and research. Cyberbotics has maintained Webots continuously since 1998.

The platform is primarily designed for the RoboCupJunior Rescue Simulation competition. It is intended for programmers with intermediate to advanced experience.

How it fits together

Component	What it does	Where to get it
Webots R2023b	The 3D robot simulator	Webots R2023b release
Erebus	The worlds and the game manager (Main Supervisor), which applies the rules and calculates the score	Erebus releases
Your controller	Your robot’s program, in Python or C/C++	You write this!
Robot Customizer	Web tool to design a custom robot and export it as a JSON file	robot.erebus.rcj.cloud
World Editor	Web tool to draw practice maps and export them as .wbt worlds	world.erebus.rcj.cloud

What can you do with it?

1. Build a robot. Choose its sensors and where they go, within a budget.
2. Program it. Your controller reads the sensors and decides what to do, with no human help.
3. Run it. Test it on the included worlds or on your own, and watch the score.
4. Compete. Take part in local, regional and international RoboCupJunior competitions.

If you already know Erebus, see What’s new in v26.

Useful references

Useful links for learning about and working with Erebus:

• Webots User Guide
• Webots Reference Manual
• Python Documentation
• C++ Documentation
• OpenCV Tutorials
• RCJ Rescue Community Website: events, team documents, and TDP, Poster and Video rubrics
• RoboCupJunior Forum: rule clarifications

Next

Install Erebus, then read the Rules summary to understand the game.