Category: News

NASA tech finds disaster survivors

Each time your heart beats, your entire body moves — even if you’re unconscious and pinned under a pile of rubble. The vibrations are small, invisible to the human eye, and might just save your life after a major disaster.

Researchers at NASA have developed a device that picks up these subtle movements through up to 40 feet of debris. Called FINDER (Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response), the tool was developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to help rescue crews find survivors quickly in a major disaster.

After a disaster, there’s a limited window of time to find trapped survivors. FINDER makes the process more efficient. It uses a low power radio signal to detect motion. Each movement caused by a heartbeat is like a “twinkle” reflecting back to the radar. What makes the system especially smart is software that can cut through all other movements and pinpoint which vibrations are signs of life. The system looks just for the signals that match human heartbeats, filtering out slower movements like tree branches in the wind, and faster ones like the heartbeat of a rat.

It takes about five minutes to learn how to use FINDER and just a few minutes to set up. The device fits into a case small enough to carry on a plane. Hit the “Search” button and 30 seconds later a Web page appears on the FINDER laptop, which shows how many heartbeats it’s found in a 100 foot radius.

Check out more information at cnn.com

This squishy tentacle robot may haunt your dreams, but it could also help you in a disaster

A new robot built at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab is rubbery and wriggly, and built to squirm around tight corners.

The creation is meant to be an arm for what are known as soft robots — machines that use compressed air to move their soft body parts, making them safe to be around humans and capable of feats with which hard robots might struggle. It’s inspired by octopus tentacles and moves by puffing up different segments of its body.

Unlike many other soft robots, the tentacle really is made of 100 percent soft material — silicone rubber.

Check out more information at gigaom.com

9/11: Thoughts on the Anniversary of the WTC Disaster and First Use of Robots

I am spending the anniversary of 9/11 at the World Bank Headquarters at the World Reconstruction Conference. I was invited to give a talk on how disaster robots can be used for the recovery phase of disasters (as opposed to the search and rescue/response phase). In many ways, it was the kind of talk I had expected to give on the 13th anniversary of the first use of robots for a disaster.  I was able to proudly show  that land, sea, and aerial robots are already being used for recovery efforts. For example, the joint IRS-CRASAR team that fielded marine robots to the 2011 Japanese tsunami helped with the recovery of the region, re-opening the Minami-sanriku fishing port and finding polluting debris in the aquaculture. The decommissioning of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is likely to go on for decades and robots are essential to the safe and cost-effective work.

But it was also the kind of talk that I hadn’t expected to give because 13 years after the successful use of ground robots, 10 years after marine vehicles, and 9 years after small aerial vehicles, robots still are not routinized into disasters! The responders don’t have them and as best I can tell in 36 disasters where robots have been reported to be used, the robots were borrowed in 35 cases- the agency that needed them didn’t have them.

The past 13 years have continued to show the potential, I believe the next 3 will be where we see the rapid adoption of disaster robotics.

Our respects to the victims, their families, and the responders and my thanks to the great team that John Blitch pulled together for CRASAR’s and the world’s first use of robots.

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RCMP use drone to find family lost in the woods

On Saturday at 4:30 p.m., two adults and their 17-month-old child entered the woods off the Highway 107 extension. The Dartmouth family got lost and called police around 8:30 p.m. Sgt. Linda Gray with Halifax District RCMP tells Global News that police tried using sirens to pinpoint where the family was but did not have any luck.

A drone was deployed, and the family was found in a heavily wooded area northeast of Topsail Lake. Police located the family and walked them out of the woods around 2 a.m. on Sunday. There were no injuries.

Check out more information at globalnews.ca

Toy drone disrupts aircraft fighting California wildfire

A private drone trying to film a wildfire that has charred nearly six square miles in Northern California briefly disrupted firefighting efforts, although workers had gained the upper hand against the blaze, officials said on Monday.

Fire officials spotted the drone over the so-called Sand Fire on Sunday and immediately called police to find the drone’s owner and have the toy grounded to avoid a possible mid-air collision, a California fire official said.

“That drone was flying within our air space and was a hazard for our aircraft,” said California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokesman Kevin Lucero. “It essentially inhibited some of our operations going on.”

The El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office told the Sacramento Bee newspaper that it was investigating the incident. It said the drone’s owner was a hobbyist trying to film the blaze.

Check out more information at news.msn.com

Origami Robot Could Be Used In Search And Rescue Missions

Researchers developed a robot that employs a self-folding method inspired by the ancient art of origami.

The researchers found a way to coax flat sheets of composite materials to self-fold into robots with complex mobility, the American Association for the Advancement of Science reported. The findings were published in the August 8 edition of Science.

The new robots formed themselves through paper and shape memory polymers; these materials responded to heat above 100 degrees Celsius. The flat composite proved to be able to transform itself into a functional machine in only about four minutes; the final product can crawl at a speed of two inches per second. The new approach allows researchers to produce complex robots that can be scaled to different sizes and are strong for their weight.

Check out more information at hngn.com

BBC News: UAS Finds Missing US Man in 20 Minutes

A model drone has helped locate an elderly man in Wisconsin who had been missing for three days.

Search teams using dogs, helicopters and volunteers had combed the countryside around Fitchburg seeking Guillermo DeVenecia. The drone found Mr DeVenecia, who has Alzheimer’s, about 20 minutes after its operator joined the search effort. The success may put pressure on US rules limiting the use of drones in search and rescue operations.

Check out more information at increasinghumanpotential.org