Format: Half day tutorial
Abstract
This tutorial will introduce researchers to the rescue robotics domain, enabling them to apply their research results to disaster response and recovery or to re-direct their research. The focus will be on quantifying what makes rescue robotics different from IED or military robots, including adoption, reinforced by videos and data from actual disasters.
The tutorial will consist of six modules. The introductory module will i) introduce attendees to the prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery cycle nomenclature and general response and recovery culture; ii) compare the technological needs, environmental conditions, and operational constraints of urban search and rescue (building collapses, terrorism, hurricanes, and earthquakes), wilderness search and rescue, underground mine rescue, nuclear responses, and recovery; iii) provide an international history of deployments from all known agencies and lessons learned, iv) describe the used and desired levels of autonomy; and v) the adoption process for equipment and the ASTM standards process. Three modules will discuss the unique applications and research issues for unmanned aerial, marine, and ground vehicles, followed by a human-robot interaction module. Each module will amplify the material through case studies and will identify open research issues. The sixth module will offer suggestions on conducting field research, interacting with response professionals, describe legal and ethical considerations, and discuss how to plan and manage logistics.
Extensive video, data sets, and information on why or why not robots were used at recent disasters including USA Hurricane Ike, Haiti Earthquake, Chile Mine Collapse, New Zealand Mine Collapse, New Zealand Earthquake, and Japan Quake/Tsunami/Fukushima Reactors will be used to illustrate key points.
Students will be provided with a copy of the tutorial, list of helpful emergency response websites, and references.
Instructor
Dr. Robin R. Murphy
Director, Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue
Raytheon Professor of Computer Science and Engineering
Texas A&M University
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Dr. Murphy is an IEEE Fellow and has participated in 13 disasters, starting with the first use of rescue robots at the World Trade Center and most recently assisting with the use of UAVs for inspecting the Fukushima reactors and deploying UMVs to northern Japan for search and recovery operations. She has won numerous awards for her rescue robotics research, is a WIRED Alpha Geek, and was named one of the most influential women in technology by Fast Company. |
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Tentative schedule 0830 Introduction to the domain0930 UGV with case studies 1015 UAS with case studies 1100 UMV with case studies 1130 Human-robot interaction 1200 Field work 1230 tutorial ends |
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Motivation and objectives
The recent series of disasters has increased awareness of the possibilities of robotics for assistance. However, emergency response is an arcane domain reflecting many different applications. The technological demands or possibly applications for robots are not well or correctly reported by media coverage or competitions, leading many researchers to work on the wrong problem or miss critical opportunities to contribute. The objectives are to introduce the community to the "hidden" side of disasters and the backstory on why or why not which robots were used at recent disasters and to encourage the community to engage in rescue robotics as an application domain for their work.
Primary/secondary audience
The primary audience is academic or industrial researchers and developers who see their work in mobility, biomimetic platforms, autonomy, sensors, SLAM, mobile manipulation, cyber-physical systems, and human-robot interaction as relevant to disaster response but do not have sufficient understanding to tailor their work or a path to transfer it to the field. The secondary audiences are graduate students and junior researchers who are looking for a domain with clear broader impacts or are participants in rescue robot competitions who are interested in taking their work to the "next level".
Registration