A post from robots.net reminded me that I hadn’t updated the blog about Hurricane Sandy. We have not been called and really didn’t expect to be. Sandy hit the NJ/NY area- home turf to Jim Bastan and NJ-TF1, the US&R task force that has been aggressively adopting robots.  They fielded the ground robots at the Prospect Towers collapse and also have been experimenting with UAVs. Likewise FDNY and NYPD have access to a wide set of technologies through the DHS National Urban Science and Technology lab.

Remember: Roboticists Without Borders patch to pointers to where robots have/are being used! Help me keep the list of robots and disasters growing!

We do expect to assist with recovery efforts such as what we did in Japan, especially with underwater assessment. In the meantime, I am personally working on the finishing touches for the 10th IEEE International Symposium on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robots, which starts on Monday. I’m the general chair with Dr. Alex Kleiner, a fabulously talented researcher in Sweden,  serving as the conference chair organizing the 43 papers from 10 countries doing most of the real work!