Researchers in the Sheffield Centre for Robotics are working on making small robots that do not have much thinking power, but are used in a swarm to complete different tasks. Right now these robots are small, but On a larger scale, they could play a part in military, or search and rescue operations, acting together in areas where it would be too dangerous or impractical for humans to go.
Here is the link to the full article at Phys.org and at Science Daily.

The robot features GPS navigation tools, artificial intelligence, sound and image processing, autopilot search and rescue and a range of sensors including a three axel gyroscope, barometer, and compass. The robot is used to find people in the ocean and give them flotation items, as well as help rescuers found them.
Here is the link to the full article Wired.co.uk .
Here is another link to the full article from Robotics Trends .

New research is being done in Swarm robotics. This techonlogy can be used to help search and recsue efforts by giving more vision to surounding areas.
Here is the article from Phys.org.

Here is a podcast about training the first generation of drone pilots. A lot of good questions are raised, and these pilots, could see a use in Disaster Relief efforts as well.
Here is the article from IEE Spectrum .

Last week the Arab Regional Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction was held, to put together a guildline for how many Arab conuntires will response to Disasters.
Here is the full article from Ansamed .

Researcher Daniel Goldman, a professor in the School of Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is studying how animals move through granny surfaces, and trying to create a robot legs that can help a robot easily navigate through theses rough terrain environment. Here is the full article from Phys Org
Here is two more articles talking about terradynamics: Business Insider and Io9

Assistant Professor Dr. Aaron Ames at the A&M Bipedal Experimental Robotics Lab (AMBER), he and his students have worked to create a robot that walks like a human. This techonlogy could have applications in space exploration, disaster response, military operations, prosthetics and other areas. Here is the full article.

Unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, or Drones as this article calls them have become more an more popular in many states. University of North Dakota has become the first university to offer a degree program in unmanned aviation. As well as drones become more wide spread law makers and the FAA are having to raise and answer a lot of questions to keep people safe.
Here is the full article.

Israel is showing off products in the fields of renewable energy, the war on traffic accidents, medicine, search and rescue, and robotics to President Barack Obama.
The search and rescue robot that will be shown is the ‘Robot Snake’. A video of the snake is on the article page. Here is the full article.