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Search and Rescue Robots
An anonymous submitter sent in: "Interesting article on the New York Times [need an acct, blah] about the various robots currently in use to search the rubble of the WTC. Not a very technical article (expectedly). Seems to be all telepresence stuff. No mention of any autonomous devices, which is as I'd expect. Too bad we don't have a few platoons of those sony bipeds with firefighter/s&r programming to make that first response."
I don't think those sony walking computers would be very suited for the rescue there. I see it as a big acomplishment for them to be able to go up stairs, let alone crawl over stuff. Give those guys enough shielding and send them into a radio active area, sure.
I hope the battery of those robots work longer than the one inside my notebook. *sigh*
the BBC has this piece on laser mapping of the rubble.
J-aims
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Yo, whatever happened to peas? Join T( H)GS
the BBC have a piece here that doesn't require all that messing about with an account.
J-aims
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Yo, whatever happened to peas? Join T( H)GS
http://archives.nytimes.com/2001/09/27/technology/ circuits/27ROBO.html
Short on technical data ? try non-existing techincal data, unless you count using treads there was absolutely NO description of anything in these babies.
It would be good for rescue operations (not for body-search ones) if the robots were equipped with a speaker/mic besides the teleprescence equipment. This way, if they found somebody alive the ppl topside could comunicate with them.
Give them some hope.
Are this things tethered ? or wireless ? the article shows that small tracked one without any cables sticking out, but its not operating. Cos I guess all the steel and iron would fuck up wireless comms its not like line-of-sight or some office walls between the robots and the operator. And a very powerfull tx/rx module would require a lot of juice.
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T
"If you can't improve the silence, don't speak."
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http://archive.nytimes.com/2001/09/27/technology/c ircuits/27ROBO.html
This trick has been seen on slashdot before. It should be a FAQ. Editors should automatically use the archive subdomain in NYT links rather than the www subdomain.
-matt
This is a really interesting opportunity for some high-tech to be applied to a real non-military situation. Robin Murphy came here to UCSD and talked a few months ago, and she actually brought (and we got to drive) the tracked one with the flippers in front.
Those things are not easy to drive. One of the most difficult things is getting a perspective on where the robot is in relation to it's surroundings (very rough rubble). This is an ongoing research area for many robotics teams, and one we have been working on also.
The submitter mentioned something about autonomous robots, I think they don't fully understand the difficulty of the problem which robotics researchers are working on. Navigating uneven building wreckage autonomously is an incredibly difficult problem, in general. Especially under the conditions of the WTC rubble. There may be some small parts of the process which can be automated, but I doubt it would be useful in this situation anyway. They were using the robots as probes to discover what was inside areas where it was dangerous for people to be there, so a human is already "in the loop". The real use of these systems is for remote visualization (i.e. show me what's in there) in hard to reach areas.
They didn't specify what types of cameras are being used, but this is a mostly visual problem from my understanding. Most robots have standard rectilinear camera views that are forward facing, unfortunately operation of these platforms is difficult becuause of the restricted field of view and inability to see on the left, right and behind the robot. Multiple cameras helps, but adds significant complexity and disjoint views. A technology which really makes this easier is an Omni-directional Video sensor (which has a 360 deg. field of view around the sensor). These are ideal for "immersed" applications like this, and they literally give the operator a view of the entire space around the bot (except for directly overhead) and allow you to determine the robot's orientation relative to obstacles easily. The same data can also be unwarped and used to create a perspective or panoramic view of the area in real time. A pair of these and stereo software (which also has been done in our lab, [shameless plug over]) can provide a full depth-map of the area. The ODVS has the difficulty of limited resolution (same CCD, larger fov) but this can be supplemented by a Pan/Tilt/Zoom rectilinear camera.
Really the interesting part of research in this direction is the remote operation and visualizations that help the perator navigate through the area to achieve it's goal. This is what my thesis is on, actually.
More info: UCSD CVRR Lab The Page of Omnidirectional Vision and our source of ODVS. Also check Vstone (in Japanese, may need to run that last one through babelfish or something).
Mobile Robots are cool. We even have one that pulls cables for us in the drop-ceiling of our lab... we're slowly working on a web-page for that new one.. I have a cool video for it already but it's HUGE (100M or so). Anyway, I'll shut up.
Brett
__ No registration required to read this message. They did it in the Matrix.
those yappy little Aibos! Small, mobile, autonomous. Add a speaker and microphone, and you can talk to survivors while they pet the 'bot and watch it do tricks.
Better yet, the operators can cry, "Let slip the dogs of war!" or "release the hounds!" when they deploy them.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
You can also look at Wired's version here, with a few more pics than NYT.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
You mean the 1.5 foot tall ones with little nuts for hands? I don't think they could lift anything to look for a person under it...
[Yes, yes, I know, Vlad lost early on this season, but it's still a well known 'bot. And I still think Biohazard should have won the decision].
I'm also surprised that no one compared the robots to the search dogs they have working. [Can work longer hours, with just a battery change out, can be built faster than it takes to train a dog, can be sent into more dangerous areas without fear of killing it [as it was never alive], etc].
Flame me later for the MSNBC link, but they had a good article on the use of dogs earlier this week:
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
heres an idea - why not register with FAKE info? Hell yeah, Im a 50 yr Afghan woman earning $500k/yr.
Hmm working my but of to get a grip on PROLOG.
When reading this I wonder if there might even be a future for this horrible but efficient (hmm borg tech?) AI language?
It's not an issue about people having my info, it's all the effort of typing something in. And quite frankly, whats the problem with pointing out a similar story? (that was published a week ago incidently)
J-aims
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Yo, whatever happened to peas? Join T( H)GS
href="http://www.r.cs.kobe-u.ac.jp/robocup-rescue
you can build your own coordinated team of virtual robots to work in a simulated disaster zone + there are some search and rescue competitions using real robots. There's a download page for the simulators and disaster toolkits.
.sig
This isn't redundant- the two BBC stories are different pieces
A friend of mine works in the acoustics lab at a nearby university. Not long after the attack, they received a request to build a device that would allow rescuers to find people in the rubble by listening for breathing or cries for help that couldn't be heard otherwise. The team did get something together for this and went up to the site, but they never got to try it out.
This was a couple days after the attack and rescue workers had pretty much given up on survivors at that point (though the media continued to report otherwise). According to my friend, when he got there, the police and firefighters were concentrating the search on finding their own guys and had pretty much given up on finding anyone else.
He said that it took about 6 hours to get cleared to go onto the site itself, and then, after that, you were put in a queue to use the site for your task (searching, removing rubble, et cetera). They were bumped twice before being told they weren't going to be used, so the device never had a field test, but none of the team complained. They were in complete awe of the scene itself, and, while they ultimately felt helpless, they felt privileged just to be there and to speak with other crews and native New Yorkers. They managed to get some audio recordings of the area as well, thinking it might be important for historical reasons.
Unfortunately, they wouldn't be much help in the WTC situation, where everything is buried under tons of rubble, but there are some really amazing things being done in the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International International Aerial Robotics Competition. My school has had a team for a few years, and they kick ass. The goal: Autonomous flying robots with vision, image recognition, hazard avoidance, and more. This stuff is frickin cool.
sigs are for suckers
A former employer:
http://www.inuktun.com/vgtv.htm
I suppose if I mug you, and rape your wife that I and my friends could then press charges against you later if you try to testify against me? How consistent! At least China is backing its techs out that are improving Iraq's weaponry. Gee, thanks China. Maybe next you could adopt a policy to not directly aid violent imperialistic coutries that target civilians and wish to commit genocide in the future?
I should point out that that doesn't always work.
The links to the lidar story for example.