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Japanese quake: Leading Researchers Gathered at Texas A&M

See video from KBTX on the robots and exercise.

update: the death toll is climbing to horrific numbers and the team is all sending our thoughts and prayers for the victims and to our colleagues who must be so worried about their families.

Ironically, the leading researchers from Japan in rescue robotics led by Dr. Satoshi Tadakoro of the International Rescue Systems Institute are here in the USA for the JST-RESPONDR exercise and workshop that CRASAR organized. They were heading back this morning, but now with more urgency. They have tentatively requested our assistance from our Roboticists Without Borders program, but we are waiting for the required formal request.

The types of robots that based on the exercises and past experience that would be of use include: small Unmanned Aerial Systems to survey damage, particularly from the sides and looking in, snake UGVs (Dr. Howie Choset’s snake was the star of the exercises here and has been used for archeological exploration in Egypt), and underwater ROVs for inspection (Dr. Eric Steimle has had significant experience leading our efforts at Hurricanes Wilma and Ike), and tether-based UGVs (our standard cache).

NZ Quake and Sandfish

Dan Goldman’s work in duplicating sandfish made it into Science News– a reminder of how biomimetic robots could make a real difference in disasters such as the New Zealand earthquake with its dense rubble. The responders continue to find survivors which is fantastic but are racing the clock. We wish we were there to help with more than our prayers- may all the survivors be found quickly, families reunited, and the recovery be quick!

NZ Quake… robots and structures

We’re watching the NZ quake and wishing the survivors, families, and responders the very best.  CRASAR and the sister groups pursuing emergency informatics at Texas A&M and the International Rescue Systems Institute in Japan are on stand-by and have put out the usual offers of assistance- just a reminder we don’t self-deploy.

The NZ quake is a reminder of how important having technology immediately on site is critical, as the first 72 hours are especially critical for life-saving, and for understanding the overall situation to begin recovery planning (which occurs in parallel with the rescue activities but doesn’t get quite the media attention).

In terms of recovery, being able to understand the structural damage, what might collapse in the aftershocks, and what it takes to repair schools, hospitals, and municipal buildings and get them open is important. Ground robots can be used to penetrate the rubble and get the “inside” view. Aerial vehicles, particularly small helicopters, can give structural engineers views that planes or a pair of binoculars on the ground can’t provide. And let’s not forget about bridges, seawalls, ports, and shipping lanes!

Australian flooding- UMV robots might help

Juan Rojas saw this about the severe flooding in Australia. Small unmanned marine vehicles, both surface (boats) and ROVs (underwater), can be of assistance in inspecting bridges for underwater damage or debris posed to crash into the substructure and damage the bridge– even in high currents and turbidity which prevent divers from manually inspection. CRASAR has used a AEOS USV at Hurricanes Wilma and Ike to inspect bridges and also experimented with ROVs and UUVs. Through funding from the National Science Foundation, we have a AEOS (called the Sea-RAI for Sea Robot-Assisted Inspection) on the ready for research and response.

Our UMV team (Robin  Murphy, Eric Steimle, Michael Lindemuth, David Trejo, Michael Hall, Daryl Slocum, Stefan Hurlebas, Zenon Medina-Cetina)  has an invited paper coming out shortly in the Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems on robot-assisted bridge inspection. A short version is here.

Colombia landslide: robots and landslides

CRASAR’s connection in China, Dr. Juan Rojas, saw this about the Bello, Colombia landslide. Our sympathy and prayers for the victims and their families.

Landslides are tough for robots. CRASAR’s Sam Stover and I assisted with the 2005 La Conchita, California, mudslide which is described here. The short version of what we learned was that the land or mud fluidizes and becomes like water, filling every possible gap. Voids are rare and it’s not a matter of a robot penetrating dense rubble, it’s a matter of being able to be an earthworm and burrow into solid dirt.  “Regular” robots can help search collateral damage but aren’t going to be much use for the buried portions.

BUT GREAT POSSIBILITIES! After my Gegenheimer Lecture at Georgia Tech last week, I met with Dr. Dan Goldman who is working on robotic versions of sand lizards which can burrow. This was the first realistic hope I’ve seen for a robot that could quickly penetrate the soil and perhaps find one of those few voids with trapped air (and survivors). Plus Dr. Carolina Chang got involved in rescue robotics after the landslides in her country, so with this kind of focus perhaps we can improve the odds in the future.

MSHA, CRASAR standing down

With the second explosion and an official declaration of the Pike River Mine explosion as a recovery operation, the New Zealand government has asked the MSHA team to stand down. The robot had arrived as LAX almost exactly as the press conference about the second explosion so Air New Zealand put us up at an airport hotel to see what the course of action would be. (Air New Zealand has been amazing- getting the V2 from Pittsburgh to LA, rebooking flights (like mine), and being extraordinarily friendly and helpful.) I wished we could have helped in a tangible way. And I wish there had been a happy ending– our deepest sympathy and condolences to the families on their tragedy and also the responders who must be devastated.

For me, it’s back home and trying to document the use of the robots so that we can learn for the future.

MSHA V2 robot going to New Zealand, CRASAR joining the team

It looks like from the internet news that it has been a busy day in New Zealand with two robots and a third being prepped. My hat’s off to the Kiwis for aggressively pursuing this technology. I know of only one other case- the Midas Gold Mine Nevada collapse- where more than one robot was deployed. And that was one at a time (the first robot from nearby Fallon NAS was too big and heavy for that type of void, so CRASAR was called in and we brought in an iRobot packbot and Inuktun/ASR Extreme VGTV from the US Navy SPAWAR small robot pool. The packbot was too big so we used the Extreme, so only 2 robots were used.). It sounds like that more than 1 robot is, or was, active at one time at Pike River, so that’s a record.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration, under the direction of technology director Dr. Jeff Kravitz, is bringing the V2 (the Remotec Wolverine variant that is to the best of my knowledge the only mine permissible robot in the world) to New Zealand. I am currently waiting at LAX for them to arrive, as I’ve been invited to join their team. I can’t wait to “meet” the other robots (and responders). Jeff is a real unsung hero of rescue robotics, he has been involved with the most underground mine rescue robot deployments in the world. We’ve worked together since 2006, you can see him in this video about the rescue robot at the Crandall Canyon Utah mine disaster, and we are co-authors of a paper summarizing underground mine rescue robot technology and the nine deployments as of 2009.

I’m sure I speak for everyone that we’d be thrilled to arrive in New Zealand to discover that the 29 miners had been found alive and had been extricated; they remain in our prayers.

Pike River Mine robots fails

A sad day with the robot failing in New Zealand and no resolution on the missing miners. I got asked many times today by the NZ media about the ways a bomb squad robot could fail or fail being used as an underground mine rescue robot. Mobile robot technology is still primitive (most robots are not as sophisticated as they could be due to economic barriers) plus search and rescue is one of the hardest, if not THE hardest, domain.

I am afraid that we may be losing sight of while there are many ways for a robot to fail, a single success could save 29 lives.  And if not this time, we learn for the next- because there will always be a next time.

Our deepest, best wishes for the miners and their families and also the responders who are pushing the envelope to try to find the missing.

Pike River Coal Mine explosion in New Zealand

Peter Griffin of the Science Media Centre in New Zealand has just given us a heads up that rescuers will be attempting to deploy a robot in the search for the 29 missing miners from the Pike River coal mine explosion. Our prayers are with the miners, their families, and the responders and we hope for a happy ending like at Chile.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaPYV6mMfSc[/youtube]

The video above is from the robot at the Crandall Canyon Utah coal mine collapse and pictures are in the media gallery. A paper summarizing a study CRASAR did for the US Mine Safety and Health Administration for all 3 types of mine robot rescue is here and give the prior deployments, advantages and limitations of robots for each. The US Mine Safety and Health Administration and its lead scientist, Dr. Jeffrey Kravitz, is the world leader in underground mine rescue deployments and CRASAR is proud to have assisted with two mine rescues. To date, there has been no known “live saves” of miners with a robot but we’re hoping this is a first.