The annual IEEE International Symposium on Safety Security and Rescue Robotics (SSRR), sponsored by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, International Rescue System Institute, and the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue, has a tradition of attracting cutting-edge papers in the theory and practice of robots for rapid and secure inspection of critical infrastructure, disaster response and recovery, disaster mitigation and recovery, detection of chemical, biological and radiological risks, and operations in these dangerous sites.
In the past it has served as a forum gathering international researchers together for the exchange of ideas on technical problems and their solutions in these domains. The 10th anniversary SSRR 2012 will be hosted this year at Texas A&M, College Station, Texas, while the 11th will be hosted in Linkoping, Sweden. This proposal requests travel funds from NSF to assist students to participate in SSRR 2012 & 2013 to participate in field trials with actual responders. This represents both the intellectgual merit and the broader impacts.