This project, developing and maintaining robotics kits for nationwide research, aims at facilitating research into robot-assisted urban search and rescue (USAR) by providing resources to overcome barriers presenting research involvement (lack of access to domain experts and meaningful sites combined with the need for expensive specialized equipment), while at the same time increasing the availability of mobile robots for an emergency response. This work supports the Expansion of existing caches of robots suitable for USAR research in two different regions, Training on these robots, data collection, and access to these robots and data sets via the Internet, Field data collection exercises with fire rescue professionals at USAR sites, and Loan of robots to individual researchers. The work facilitates groups, without rescue robots or access to domain experts, to have access to data and/or work directly with USAR robots and rescue experts in the field.
Rescue robotics is a complex domain in need of fundamental breakthroughs in distributed computing, networking and communications, software engineering and interoperability, real-time multi-threaded control, user interfaces and human-robot interaction, robotics, sensors, and artificial intelligence (AI). Hence, the Computing Research Association declared this research area a "grand challenge." Four types of research equipment, micro-robots, mini-robots, image processing and video capturing equipment, and sensors, enable researchers to collect the data and evaluate their work in the cited areas. In addition to integrating existing technology and eliciting effective cooperation between professionals and researchers in the case of an emergency, the project provides education in robotics for homeland defense, and the potential to safeguard lives of rescue workers and locate victims.
