About CRASAR

Drone Team at Hurricane Harvey (Fort Bend OEM). UMV not shown.

Drone Team at Hurricane Harvey (Fort Bend OEM). UMV not shown.

The Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR) is a nonprofit corporation organized to foster unmanned systems being effectively used by formal emergency management agencies through voluntary national and international activities that deploy, promote, train, document, analyze, and disseminate scientific knowledge. It serves as a crisis response and research organization which strives to direct and exploit new technology development in robotics and unmanned systems for emergency response by public safety agencies worldwide. It was originally established under the auspices of NIUSR (National Institute for Urban Search and Rescue), and participated in the WTC response, deploying robots on Towers 1 and 2, Building 4, and other areas from the early morning of 9/12/2001 through 10/2/2001. Since then, we have participated in numerous incidents (see below) and exercises as well as hosted workshops and training exercises  and classes. CRASAR has the largest number of deployments of rescue robots of any type: land, sea, or air. In 2008, CRASAR formalized  deploying volunteer teams from industry who where trained in disaster response to public safety agencies at no charge as the Roboticists Without Borders program.

Incidents CRASAR has Participated In:

1. 2001 World Traded Center 9/11: UGVs

2. 2004 Hurricane Charley: UGV

3. 2005 La Conchita Mudslides: UGV

4. 2005 Hurricane Dennis: UGV

5. 2005 Hurricane Katrina: fixed-wing UAV, rotor-craft UAV

7. 2005 Hurricane Katrina, restoration operations: rotor-craft UAV

8. 2005 Hurricane Wilma, surface UMV

9. 2007 Midas Gold Mine Collapse, Nevada: UGV

10. 2007 Crandall Canyon Coal Mine Collapse, Utah: UGV

11. 2007 Berkman Plaza II Collapse, Jacksonville FL, response: UGV

12. 2008 Berkman Plaza II Collapse, structural forensics: rotor-craft UAV, UGV

13. 2008 Hurricane Ike: surface UMV

14. 2009 State Archives Collapse, Cologne Germany: UGV

15. 2009 Post-L’Aquila Earthquake, Italy, reconstruction operations: rotor-craft UAV

16. 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident: rotor-craft UAV

17. 2011 Great East Japan Tsunami, restoration operations: ROV UMV

18. 2011 Great East Japan Tsunami, reconstruction operations: ROV, AUV UMV

19. 2013 Moore OK Tornado: advised on use of UAV

20. 2014 SR530 Mudslides response: rotorcraft UAV

21: 2014 SR530 Mudslides recovery: rotorcraft UAV

22. 2015 Memorial Day Flood Missing Person Search: rotorcraft UAV

23. 2016 Syria Boat Refugees, Greece

24. 2016 Louisiana Floods: rotorcraft UAV

25. 2016 Texas Floods: rotorcraft UAV

26. 2017 Hurricane Harvey: fixed wing and rotorcraft UAV, UMV

27. 2017 Hurricane Irma: rotorcraft UAV

28. 2017 Hurricane Maria: rotorcraft UAV