Chile Mine Disaster, Trapped Victims, and Survivor Buddy

Dr. Robin Murphy — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:48:47 +0000

CRASAR was contacted shortly after the Chiliean mine collapse that left 33 miners unaccounted for. The situation was quite similar to the Crandall Canyon Utah mine disaster in 2007 that we assisted the Mine Safety and Health Administration on– however the major difference was that the inner diameter of the borehole was much smaller- on the order of 3.5 inches, whereas at Crandall Canyon we had closer to 9 inches. 9 inches is currently the smallest we can get robots that are waterproof and able to function when they land in the pile of mud from the drilling,such as the one built by Inuktun and operated by Pipe Eye International. As we worked to see if we could do better, the miners were miraculously found alive- so the search and rescue robot wasn’t needed.

But now the question is how to keep the trapped miners comfortable and unstressed as they wait for extraction. The has been a topic of research that we are conducting with Prof. Cliff Nass at Stanford University, a world leader in how people communicate through media (such as computers or robots), since 2007. We call the project “Survivor Buddy” – building a robot multi-media “head” that wasn’t creepy. We were originally funded by Microsoft (thanks!) and since 2009 by the National Science Foundation (thanks, too!). The original version of Survivor Buddy was cited by Popular Science as a “Best of 2009″ and we have just completed a much lighter, more agile version seen in these YouTube clips here and here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

We’ve requested permission to come to Chile and observe, now that things have settled down (they didn’t need MORE people on-site right after they found the miners). This is quite the opportunity to learn how trapped victims react… and perhaps some of the lessons Cliff and I and our great grad students (especially the newly graduated Dr. Victoria Groom) have learned can be of some help.

Brazil Mudslide: rescue robots for mudslides

Dr. Robin Murphy — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 05:12:41 +0000

The sad news of the mudslide in Angra dos Reis, Brazil, brings up memories of our deployment to the 2005 La Conchita, California, mudslides. Rory Rehbeck, then a captain with LA County Fire Department, invited CRASAR out to assist Ventura County Fire Department. There really aren’t survivors of a mudslide- the mud is a liquid, penetrates like water, and covers everything. The best you can hope for is survivors from the collateral damage. The houses on the slope of La Conchita were either buried, squished as if inside a giant trash compacter, or untouched. We attempted to use the new Extreme robots we had purchased through a NSF grant to search some of the damaged houses as a family of 6 was still missing (they were on vacation) and the canines were giving some ambiguous hits.

Our journal article “Rescue robots for mudslides: A descriptive study of the 2005 La Conchita mudslide response” Journal of Field Robotics, vol 25 no 1-2 (Jan 2008) p 3-16 gives the details of what Sam Stover and I experienced: the robots did not do well in the mud and vegetation when we tried to go under a house to get in it nor work in deep shag carpeting when we entered another house through the garret window. See the Media Gallery for photos. But being there did identify the need for remote sensor networks dropped off by UAVs to continously monitor for further slides (geologists checking manually every 6-8 hours isn’t good enough)- sensor networks for advanced placement already exist, they just don’t get used. We’re looking forward to combining the UAV work here with Prof. Dez Song’s work in sensor networks.

The families in Brazil are in our prayers and hearts.

Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR) at Texas A&M University » Research

Chile Mine Disaster, Trapped Victims, and Survivor Buddy

Brazil Mudslide: rescue robots for mudslides