The Infona portal uses cookies, i.e. strings of text saved by a browser on the user's device. The portal can access those files and use them to remember the user's data, such as their chosen settings (screen view, interface language, etc.), or their login data. By using the Infona portal the user accepts automatic saving and using this information for portal operation purposes. More information on the subject can be found in the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. By closing this window the user confirms that they have read the information on cookie usage, and they accept the privacy policy and the way cookies are used by the portal. You can change the cookie settings in your browser.
Japan has involved several social problems, e.g., large scale disasters and aging of infrastructures, and the robots working in a special environment are expected for the countermeasures. For the development of the robots, though there are many foundmental studies, less number of proven application in actual fields in Japan. Therefore, in order to accerelate the utilization of the robots, we need...
The Microsoft Kinect has been used prolifically in robotics applications including rescue robotics since its introduction in November 2010, but its limitations have seldom been addressed. Although the low cost depth sensor is an attractive option for use in robot navigation, mapping, and human robot interaction, its poor performance in bright sunlight makes it generally unsuitable for outdoor work...
Remotely operated robots can be used for rescue and recovery in natural disasters and man-made catastrophes, including battlefield environments. But, what if the robot is taken over and turned into a weapon? In this paper, we consider the type of attacks that might occur and their implications on rescue and recovery missions. From this, we introduce a notion of telerobotic security and propose some...
The UAVForge challenge, announced in July 2011, was designed to bring together a diverse group of UAV enthusiasts to develop the next generation of low cost, small unmanned aerial systems for perch and stare operations in a SSRR context. The challenge combined a collaborative website with a live competitive fly-off event held at Fort Stewart, Georgia in May 2012. UAVForge was a Defense Advanced Research...
This report presents our recent and ongoing work developing a consistent decentralized data fusion approach for robust multi-robot SLAM in dangerous, unknown environments. The DDF-SAM 2.0 approach extends our previous work by combining local and neighborhood information in a single, consistent augmented local map, without the overly conservative to avoiding information double-counting in the previous...
Mapping is an important task for mobile robots in general and in Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics (SSRR) in particular — often maps are even a core mission deliverable for SSRR applications. The assessment of the quality of maps in a simple, efficient and automated way is hence of high interest. But it is not trivial and an ongoing research topic. Here, an overview of advances with a new approach...
This paper evaluates the use of social head gaze and proxemic scaling in an affective robot for victim management using two large scale simulated Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) scenario studies. On average between four and ten hours pass from the time a victim is discovered to the time of extrication of the victims [2], [5]. During this time an urban search and rescue robot remains with the victim...
The 2012 IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics Summer School was held from the 9th to the 15th of September in Alanya, Turkey, and brought together a select group of students, researchers, responders, manufacturers, and standards organization representatives for a week of learning, dissemination of challenges and best-in-class solutions, and networking. This event...
In this paper, a general methodology is presented, that allows a human to supervise autonomous robots for different types of tasks. The commands to advise the robots are classified in two general categories: commands that modify the tasks, and commands that modify the allocation of tasks to robots. The method is not tailored to a specific task allocation algorithm, because only the input data for...
Building a software system for autonomous robots is a difficult and time-consuming task. From the experience at the RoboCup competitions, it takes new teams several years to come up with autonomous robots that are competitive at the RoboCup world championship level. These world class solutions have the tendency to disappear when the teams leave the competition. Code sharing is difficult, because most...
This work investigates the promise of Bluetooth wireless communication protocol as a victim detection sensor. The fact that cellphones are carried by people can lead rescue robots to track Bluetooth devices alongside other victim detection sensors (e.g., Heat, CO2, Voice, Visual motion detector, etc.). Bluetooth communication protocol can provide the received signal strength (RSS) as an indication...
Under rubble communication is a well-known difficult problem. This is due to a number of inherent difficulties including plentiful and diverse physical obstacles that challenge both wired and wireless communication. Our previous work has shown that it is possible to use Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) dogs to deliver emergency supplies, robots and surveillance equipment to a patient trapped in rubble...
We give here a short overview of recent contributions of the Jacobs Robotics group in underwater mapping. This work reaches up to 3D mapping of complex structures, which is of particular interest for Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics (SSRR) missions with AUV, which tend to occur not in plain open waters but in complex environments. Examples of potential use cases include harbor security, infrastructure...
In disaster sites the presence of explosive gas and liquid is assumed. Thus there is an immediate need for an explosion proof active scope camera in SSR. This report presents a novel explosion proof active scope camera for use in domains of inspection of critical infrastructure, disaster response and recovery. This mechanism utilizes the pressure surge inherent to the water hammer phenomenon for locomotion...
This report projects the need for unmanned aerial and ground vehicles to assist with a response to a hazardous material incident, also called chemical biological radiological or nuclear (CBRN) events. The projected needs for the identification and containment phases were determined by a preliminary cognitive work analysis of CBRN response based on concept experimentation with 20 domain experts using...
The goal of the paper is to present the foreseen research activity of the European project “SHERPA” whose activities will start officially on February 1th 2013. The goal of SHERPA is to develop a mixed ground and aerial robotic platform to support search and rescue activities in a real-world hostile environment, like the alpine scenario that is specifically targeted in the project. Looking into the...
The robot tasks at the Fukushima Daiichi plant are different from those after earthquakes and in environments where it is more difficult for humans to operate robots previously assumed before. The tasks have been changed over the course of time. We think that cases where rescue robots are used are fewer than those where heavy equipment is used: however, the skills required to operate the robots include...
One of the many challenges in developing ground response robots for Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) is endowing them with mobility that allows traversal of challenging terrain. In a preliminary study we introduced a new approach to the mobility problem that utilizes USAR dogs to deliver robots close to human victims in rubble. The results indicated that some search dogs are able to carry a small robot...
Set the date range to filter the displayed results. You can set a starting date, ending date or both. You can enter the dates manually or choose them from the calendar.