Autonomous rescue robot swarms for first responders

Abstract

The first 24 hours after a natural or man-made disaster are the most critical for the survival of victims. Unfortunately, this is also the time period when the fewest resources are available to rescuers. This paper describes the potential for using swarms of autonomous mobile robots to help the first responders to a disaster site focus their search for victims on those areas with the highest probability of finding survivors. Specifically, the paper starts with an overview of the current state-of-the-art in rescue robots, both autonomous and teleoperated; proposes a scenario for deploying autonomous rescue robot swarms at a disaster site; summarizes work that has been done at Utah State University in developing autonomous rescue robot swarms; identifies some challenges for moving these rescue swarms out of artificial environments, like the RoboCup competition, into the real world; and, finally, makes some suggestions for future research in this area. © 2005 IEEE.