Front. Mech. Eng.

China 2007, 2(4): 404–416

DOI 10.1007/s11465-007-0070-2
REVIEW ARTICLE

LIU Jinguo, WANG Yuechao, LI Bin, MA Shugen

Current research, key performances and future development

of search and rescue robots

© Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag 2007

Abstract Frequent natural disasters and man-made cata-

1 Introduction
strophes have threatened the safety of citizens and have
attracted much more attention. The rescue mission under
In recent years, people’s safety has been greatly threatened
disaster environment is very complicated and dangerous for by frequent natural disasters such as earthquakes, fires
a rescue team. Search and rescue (SAR) robots can not only and floods; the man-made dangers such as terrorism and
improve the efficiency of rescue operations but also reduce armed conflicts; biochemical virus such as anthrax, severe
the casualty of rescuers. Robots can help rescue teams and acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), avian flu; and toxic
even replace rescuers to perform dangerous missions. Search substances and the radioactive substances such as nuclear
and rescue robots will play a more and more important role leakage. They have attracted extensive concern. Although
in the rescue operations. A survey of the research status people have improved their alert and response capabilities
of search and rescue robots in Japan, USA, China and other to various disasters, there are still fewer adequate preparations
countries has been provided. According to current research, for devastating disasters. Many people still died because
experiences and the lessons learned from applications, the of unprofessional and time pressure rescue operations [1–2].
five key performances of a search and rescue robot are sur- A new field and challenge in robotic research is how to
vivability, mobility, sensing, communicability and operability. effectively fuse the multidisciplinary knowledge such as
Multi-technique fusion and multi-agent intelligent network robotic technology, rescue technology and disaster science,
are considered to be requirements for the future development hence develop intelligent robots for the search and rescue
of the search and rescue robot. Disaster prevention, disaster operations.
reduction and disaster rescue are the important parts of According to the time when a disaster occurs, a disaster
national public safety. They are also crucial for the safety of rescue operation can be divided into three stages: the pre-
disaster rescue operation, the on-disaster rescue and the post-
citizens and their estates. Search and rescue robotic technique
disaster rescue operation. The pre-disaster rescue operation
is an urgent needed, strategic and core technique for national
mainly aims at the disasters known in advance. The rescue
development. It will be important and strategic for national
operation includes disaster prevention and elimination of
economy and safety. catastrophes, evacuation and transfer of materials. The on-
disaster rescue operation aims at time-consumed disasters
Keywords disaster, safety, search and rescue robot, current such as fire, flood, gas and radioactive substances. It mainly
research, key performance, development tendency includes fighting against disasters. The post-disaster rescue
refers to taking the search and rescue operation afterwards
Translated from Journal of Mechanical Engineering, 2006, 42(12): 1–12 short-time disasters such as an earthquake and sudden explo-
[译自: 机械工程学报] sions. There is no clear boundary among the above three
stages. However, the rescue operation in all stages has two
LIU Jinguo ( ), WANG Yuechao, LI Bin
Robotics Laboratory of Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese problems: the complexity of the environment and unpre-
Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China dictable dangers. Taking an urban environment as an example,
E-mail: [email protected] the population of cities and the urban population density
MA Shugen have quickly increased, which leads to that high-rise build-
Center for Promotion of the COE Program, Ritsumeikan University, ings, underground projects, large business establishments and
Shiga-ken 525-8577, Japan cultural/entertainment facilities have been rapidly built. All
LIU Jinguo these make the rescue operation too complicated to be dealt
Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100039, with. In some extremely dangerous catastrophes including the
China fire in an explosion, the flammable, explosive and toxic gases
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and the easily second-collapse building site after an earth- The topics of the research include the robot systems of obser-
quake, the rescue staff are eager to know the inner vation in environmental disasters, sensor technology, human
situation when they can not perform an in-depth reconnais- interface technology and system integration. A public test
sance. In such a case, search and rescue robots can improve site was established at Kawasaki for the project and the Inter-
the efficiency of the rescue operation and medical treatment national Rescue System Institute was organized. The “Disaster
to reduce the casualties. They can not only help the rescue Response Strategy” of the International Rescue System Insti-
team in rescue operations, but also replace rescue staff in tute is the core part of the DDT project. The major work in
search and rescue missions. Generally, robots can play an their plans is to conduct research on robotics, intelligent
increasingly important role in a disaster rescue operation. sensors, portable terminal devices and man-machine inter-
face; to develop intelligent information collecting systems; as
well as to transmit, compile and generalize the information by
2 Recent research on search and rescue a network.
robot Professor Hirose who is in Tokyo Institute of Technology
is one of the pioneers in rescue robot research. He has
In recent years, especially after the 9.11 attack, many coun- developed many robots in his laboratory such as “ACM”,
tries in the world began to develop various anti-explosive/ “GENBU”, “SORYU” and other series prototypes in the
anti-terrorism robots as well as search and rescue robots for view of biomimetics and the Super Mechano-Systems [3–4]
disaster protections and relief in the sight of their national (http://www-robot.mes.titech.ac.jp/robot.htm, 2005-8-25).
security strategies. Meanwhile, because a search and rescue With his colleagues and students, he has made great con-
robot has lots of potential applications and wide markets, tributions to the biomimetics and its application in search and
some companies have also been involved in the research and rescue operations. Figure 1 shows the parts of the rescue
development of search and rescue robots. Additionally, the robots developed in Hirose’s laboratory. Considering the most
international robot competition, Robot World Cup (RoboCup), important thing is to locate the lives in debris and the robot
initiates a special rescue competition “RoboCup Rescue”, must be in a narrow space, they have developed the
which has provided a test platform for the theory and simu- SOURYU series. In the fire-fighting scene with water tubes,
lation technology in rescue robotics. Currently, the technology they have developed the water-driven multi-wheel robots
of a search and rescue robot is developing from theoretical named GENBU-I, GENBU-II and GENBU-III that use
and experimental research to applications. In 2005, IEEE high-pressure water as their power to move and distribute
International Workshop on Safety, Security and Rescue water.
Robotics (IEEE SSRR p05), which held in June 2005 in Kobe, Professor Kamegawa in Tokyo Institute of Technology
expected that robotics would provide an effective solution also proposed a new rescue robot platform [5]. As shown in
for the next-age disaster mitigation and become one of the Fig. 2, the robot is composed of multiple tracks and it can
indispensable components of the social infrastructure. The enter into a narrow space. With the active joints or passive
attendances came from 16 different countries or regions. joints between adjacent units, it is good at crossing barriers
Their research on rescue robotics is different, comprehensive and adapting to the ground. In Kyoto University, Osuka et al.
and diversified because of the difference in the level of skills, developed a four-section rescue robot “MOIRA” with four
geographic and political factors, disaster types, ruins and the sides equipped tracks [6]. As shown in Fig. 3, the robot used
robot tasks. In the following sections, a survey of the research each four motor to drive four tracks simultaneously and
status of search and rescue robots in Japan, USA, China and separately, which made it good at shuttling in the ruins and
other countries will be introduced separately. free of tipping.
Figure 4 shows a deformation robot “CUBIC-R”
2.1 Japan developed by Tabata et al. [7]. With tracks around, this
robot can be in a contraction model like a cubic and it
As a country with rich nuclear power and frequent earth- can be turned into a variety of other models. Figure 5
quakes, Japan has performed a relatively comprehensive shows the information collecting robot “MA-1” developed
program to research and develop search and rescue robots. by Professor Matsuno et al. from the University of Electro-
After the Hanshin Awaji (Kobe) earthquake in 1995, a Communications [8]. Figure 6 is the rescue mobile robot
complete disaster rescue and protection system has formed. “RESDOG” developed by Nagatani et al. in Okayama
Japan Ministry of Education, Sports, Culture, Science and University (http://usm.sys.okayama-u.ac.jp/~keiji/Research/
Technology has launched a national project, Special Project Prj-Rescue/rescue.html, 2005-08-25). In the bottom sus-
for Earthquake Disaster Mitigation in Urban Areas (DDT pension of the robot, several passive triangle type tracks
Project) in 2002. A part of this project (Development of provide excellent terrain adaptability. Figure 7 shows the
Advanced Robots and Information Systems for Disaster Utility Mobile Robot for Search (UMRS) series rescue
Response) aims at developing the advanced robots and infor- robots developed by Professor Takamori in Kobe University
mation systems for disaster response. This project includes [9]. The robots are expected to be used in inspection ope-
more than 30 groups with a period of five years. Participants rations in ruins. The formers are track-type vehicles whereas
include universities, companies and the national institute. the latter type adopts flexible driven joints.
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Fig. 1 Part of the search and rescue robots developed in Prof. Hirose’s laboratory
(a) ACM III; (b) ACM-R2; (c) ACM-R3; (d) GENBU-I; (e) GENBU-II; (f) GENBU-III; (g) SOURYU-I; (h) SOURYU-II

Fig. 2 Multi-unit rescue robot Fig. 5 MA-1

Fig. 3 MOIRA
Fig. 6 RESDOG

www.jaeri.go.jp/english/press/2001/010314/, 2005-08-25;
http://www.jaeri.go.jp/english/press/2001/010809/, 2005-08-
25). By remotely controlled, RESQ series robots have
designated missions such as collecting early information
(RESQ-A), collecting detailed information (RESQ-B), and
collecting sample (RESQ-C). RaBOT is co-developed by
Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Naka Institute, and Fusion
Nuclear Technology. With high mobility, it can easily go up
or down stairs.
In Chiba University, Nonami et al. performed an extensive
research on mine detection robots and air unmanned planes
Fig. 4 CUBIC-R (http://mec2.tm.chiba-u.jp/~nonami, 2005-08-25). As shown
in Fig. 9(a)–(c), the detection system at the front of a mine
Figure 8 shows the operation robot RESQ series and detection robot has high sensitivity. The aerial search and
RaBOT developed by Japan Atomic Energy Agency for the rescue robot in Fig. 9(d) is wireless controlled by ground
implementation in the atomic nucleus radiation sites (http:// operators.
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Fig. 7 UMRS series search and rescue robot

(a) UMRS-IV; (b) UMRS-V-M2; (c) UMRS-V-M3; (d) UMRS-V-S2; (e) UMRS-V-SNK

Fig. 9 Inspection robots developed in Chiba University

(a) COMET-I; (b) COMET-II; (c) COMET-III; (d) Autonomous
Helicopter
Fig. 8 Nuclear radiation operation robots in Japan
(a) RESQ-A; (b) RESQ-B; (c) RESQ-C; (d) RaBOT
MARS-A is a deformable robot developed by Hitachi. It can
In Japan, some large companies are also involved in switch valves, sample materials and lift 5 kg. SWAN is devel-
the research and development of rescue robots. They usually oped by Mitsubishi and has high adaptability to terrain. It can
cooperate with research institutes or universities. Enterprises move medium size objects and handle about 10 kg. MENHIR
provide the institute with the necessary fund support for is developed by Nissho Iwai for a radioactive environment.
the research and test site. They are also a bridge between With the strong wrists the robot can carry 25–80 kg. Enryu
products and markets. Figure 10 shows five robots developed T-52 is developed by Kitakyushu-based robot manufacturer
by Toshiba, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Tmsuk and the Tmsuk Co., Ltd. It can remove heavy debris after large-scale
other companies [10] (http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/ disasters such as earthquakes. It is 2.4 mx3.5 mx3.45 m.
2004/0325/tmsuk.htm, 2005-08-25). SMERT-M developed Mounted on the caterpillar tracks that were powered by
by Toshiba is a robot for the limited space on-site detection a diesel engine, it can chug along at 3 kph, guided by the
and the removal of dangerous materials. It can carry 5 kg. operator perching in the protected cabin at the front of the
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Fig. 10 Search and rescue robots developed by Japan companies

(a) SMERT-M; (b) MARS-A; (c) SWAN; (d) MENHIR; (e) T-52 rescue dragon

robot. Enryu’s most striking feature is its two huge hydrauli- small size and light weight. Among them, Micro VGTV and
cally operated arms with moving steel grips. Each of them can Micro Traces were proved to be more efficient than Mini
be stretched to 5 m and can lift up 500 kg. Trace in constrained space. Foster-Miller companies also
used the three robots: Talon, SOLEM and Urbot shown in
2.2 USA Fig. 11(d)–(f). With the better sensor and load-carrying
capacity, they are larger than the robots from Inuktun because
After the 9.11 attack, search and rescue robotic technology they have the NASA’s military background. SOLEM was
has attracted increasing attention in USA. The rescue ope- used in ruins. Talon and Urbot were used for the inspection in
ration at the 9.11 attack is considered to be the first application interior buildings. The iRobot also used two types of robots in
for search and rescue robots. Lieutenant Colonel John Blitch rescue operations: Packbot and ATRV. The tracked Packbot
(ret.), the director of the Center for Robotic Assisted Search had remarkable traction and self-adjustment ability. The big
and Rescue (CRASAR), requested a team of robot experts ATRV had a large wheeled mobile platform.
and suppliers to assist in search efforts at the World Trade In USA, a lot of university research centers, national
Center (WTC) disaster site. New York City’s Office of Emer- research institutes and companies also conduct researches on
gency Management directly requested CRASAR’s response. search and rescue robots. In Center for Robotic Assisted
After several hours of the terrorist attack, CRASAR quickly Search and Rescue (CRASAR), a non-profit research center
responded to the WTC disaster. This is the first known based at the University of Florida that is led by Robin Murphy
application of robots for USAR. Eight types of the rescue CRASAR, has developed many robotic technologies to assist
robots are shown in Fig. 11 [11]. search and rescue teams [12]. As shown in Fig. 12(a), the
As shown in Fig. 11(a)–(c), some types of robots from rescue robot Bujold is equipped with medical sensors. The
Inuktun are Micro VGTV, Micro Traces and Mini Traces, tracked robot has high mobility and excellent detection
respectively. They have been mostly used in ruins for their capabilities. Meanwhile, the robot can collect information
 409

Fig. 11 Search and rescue robots used in World Trade Center’s rescue operation
(a) Micro VGTV; (b) Micro Traces; (c) Mini Traces; (d) Talon; (e) SOLEM; (f) Urbot; (g) Packbot; (h) ATRV

Fig. 12 Several search and rescue robots developed in USA

(a) Bujold; (b) SCOUT; (c) TerminatorBot; (d) Tracked robot; (e) USAR ETR; (f) CONRO robot; (g) Snakebot; (h) PolyBot

such as survivors, physical information and environmental Fig. 12(c) [14], is developed by Larson et al. in the same
information and then transmit them outside. The SCOUT university. The multi-sensor rescue robot in Fig. 12(d) is
robot in Fig. 12(b) is developed by Stoeter et al. from the developed by Helmick et al. from California Institute of
University of Minnesota [13]. With simple sensor modules, Technology [15]. With the fast stair climbing ability, it is
locomotion unit, and specialized operational tool, it can be simple and easy to be controlled. Figure 12(e) provides a
used for multi-robot’s parallel information collection. The rescue mobile robot with an elephant nose like a manipulator
robot has flexible protection wheels on outer side. With two developed by Wolf et al. from Carnegie Mellon University
inspection/locomotion arms, TerminatorBot, the physical [16]. The mobile robot has a mobile platform, which can
structure of which is very cleverly designed as shown in greatly increase the mobility and exploration space of the
410
manipulator. Figure 12(f) shows a modular reconfigurable lends Urbie in many different applications. Such robots could
rescue robot CONRO developed by Shen et al. from Southern investigate urban environments contaminated with radiation,
California University [17]. It can change its configuration biological warfare, or chemical spills. They could also be
into different ones including snake, six-legged, or circle upon used for search and rescue in earthquake-struck buildings
the requirement. Figure 12(g) is a three-dimensional loco- and other disaster zones (http://robotics.jpl.nasa.gov/tasks/
motion snake-like robot developed by Haith et al. from NASA tmr/ hybrid.html, 2005-08-25).
(http://media.nasaexplores.com/lessons/02-014/fullarticle. In USA, the search and rescue UVA or helicopter also
pdf, 2005-08-25). It has high mobility under unstructured attracts the researchers’ great attention. The Vision-guided
environments. Figure 12(h) is a modular reconfigurable robot robot helicopters shown in Fig. 14(a) from CMU can quickly
PolyBot designed by Yim et al. from the research center and systematically search a very large area to locate the
PARC [18]. It can fluently change its configuration to adapt victims of an accident or a natural disaster. They can be
to different terrains. sacrificed under very dangerous conditions to save human
The Urbie series shown in Fig. 13 is jointly developed lives. Prime examples include flying close to a forest fire to
by JPL, iROBT, CMU and USC from the Mobile Robot look for stranded individuals, searching in contaminated areas
program. In the DARPA Advanced Technology Office, this and identifying potential radioactive leaks after a nuclear
program has enlisted JPL’s Machine Vision Group in leading reactor accident (http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/
the design and implementation of its perception urban robot. chopper/www/index.html, 2005-08-25). The AR Yamaha
Urbie’s initial purpose is mobile military reconnaissance in Rmax shown in Fig. 14(b) is an autonomous UAV from
the city terrain; therefore, many of its features will also make NASA Ames Research Center, which provides a platform for
it useful to police, emergency and rescue personnel. With the intelligent surveillance in application domains ranging from
hybrid structures with track, wheel and leg, the robot is rugged security and military operations to scientific information
and well-suited for hostile environments and its autonomy gathering and land management (http://human-factors.arc.
nasa.gov/apex/docs/papers/aaaiss04/aaaiss04.html, 2005-08-
25). The rescue helicopter shown in Fig. 14(c) comes from
Air Search Rescue. This association is exclusively organized
for charitable, humanitarian and educational purposes, more
specifically, it is a qualified Multi-Rescue Disaster and
Missing persons organization which provides life saving
search, rescue and recovery with involvement of law enforce-
ment, fire rescue, emergency medical and general services
such as specially trained canine search dogs, underwater
scuba recovery teams, ground search with ATV’s, helicopters,
airplanes, with no compensation for services render, all our
non-paid Board of Directors and volunteers provide around
the clock emergency services (http://www.airsearchrescue.
com/helicopter_main.htm, 2005-08-25).

2.3 China

In China, robotic scientists were aware of the importance of

the research and development of search and rescue robots
Fig. 13 Urbie series search and rescue robots since the 1970s. Many universities and institutes had laid
(a) Urbie; (b) Urbie Hybrid1T; (c) Urbie Hybrid3T; (d) Urbie stress on the search and rescue robots in various fields such as
Hybrid5T underwater rescue robot, UAVs, and UGVs [19–21].

Fig. 14 Several aerial search and rescue robots in USA

(a) CMU Helicopter; (b) AR Yamaha Rmax; (c) Air Search Rescue Helicopter
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In disaster’s search and rescue application, notable achieve- anti-terrorist, riot and unexpected incidents, the experts from
ments had been made in. In June 2002, the national 863 the “Robotic Technology Group” organized two symposiums
project—“tracked and wheeled fire-fighting robot” that with the theme of “dangerous and extreme environment
jointly held by Shanghai Fire Research Institute of Ministry robots” in March 2003 and “sudden emergency response
of Public Security, Shanghai Jiaotong University and Shanghai advanced robot” in August 2003, respectively. In October
Fire Bureau were successfully completed. The fire-fighting 2003, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry
robot, also known as a self-propelled water bubble fire of Public Security, Headquarters of Chinese People’s Armed
fighting vehicle, is a new type of fire rescue equipment with Police Force and the automation field of the tenth-five
various fire-fighting techniques. The fire fighting robot shown 863 Program first proposed the theme of anti-terrorist and
in Fig. 15 are developed by Shanghai Qiangshi Fire-fighting against riot robot research with the aim to develop the extreme
Equipment Ltd. Co., which were sponsored by Shanghai environment robot. Especially on October 30, 2003, in the
Fire Research Institute of Ministry of Public Security. The first anti-terrorism and against-riot robot symposium,
fire-fighting robots, which come from the laboratory to the proposals had been proposed to develop the public security
production workshop and at last to fighting in the real fire, robot for the 2008 Olympic Games and the 2010 World Expos.
greatly improve the fire rescue equipment of China (http:// A complete public intelligent protection and rescue system
www.qs119.com/asp/product_list.asp (in Chinese), 2005-08- for the Olympic playgrounds or the other important places
25). will be set up with the assistant of advanced inspection robots
To complete the national tenth-five “863” Program “robot for ground, wall and pipe, mini UAV for ultra-low-altitude
operating in dangerous and extreme environment” and to flight and the inspection robot for shallow water.
meet the requirement of advanced robots in national’s With fund support of the national 863 program, the
Shenyang Institute of Automation (SIA), Chinese Academy
of Sciences (CAS) had developed a serious of dangerous and
extreme environment robots where search and rescue robots
were an important part. The snake-like robot in Fig. 16(a)
is developed for unstructured environment’s inspection and
rescue operations [20]. With a wireless control system, the
snake-like robot can use manifold of 3D locomotion gaits
such as serpentine, concertina, side-locomotion and rolling.
The onsite scene can be transmitted to the operator by the
micro-camera installed on the head of the snake-like robot.
Based on the study of the snake-like robot, a link-type
reconfigurable modular tracked robot named AMOEBA-I
had been developed in SIA for a search and rescue operation.
This robot has three modules, nine mobile configurations
and three symmetrical configurations: line type, triangle
type shown in Fig. 16(b) and row type. It can change
Fig. 15 Fire-fighting robots in China its configurations and gaits to meet the requirement of

Fig. 16 Search and rescue robots developed in SIA

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environments and tasks [22,23]. The water surface rescue
robot shown in Fig. 16(c) is under wireless control within a
distance of 1 km.
As shown in Fig. 16(d), the product prototype of an
extreme environment robot, which can complete anti-
terrorism and against-riot task, had been successfully
developed by SIA and Guangzhou Weifu Company with
authorized copyright. The prototype shown in Fig. 16(e) is
the next generation of the anti-terrorism and against-riot
robot. The robot with compound structures of the wheel,
leg and track shown in Fig. 16(f) is recently developed in
SIA for the unstructured environment mobile robot. It can
overcome the complex environments such as rugged terrain,
obstacles and stairs. It can also be widely used in inspection,
investigation, handling, fire fighting and destruction of
dangerous materials. On September 12, 2005, the “China-
Japan Rescue and Safety Robotics Center” was set up in
Shenyang. The center is jointly sponsored by SIA and
the International Rescue System in Japan with the aim of Fig. 17 Several robots in RoboCup
achieving a strong alliance to promote the robotic technology (a) EMDAD1; (b) Robrno; (c) Cedra; (d) IUTMicrobot
in search and rescue application.
3 Key performances of search and rescue
2.4 Other countries robot
After the 9.11 attack, the research on search and rescue The working environment of search and rescue robots is
robot has also attracted the attention of other countries. The unpredictable and unstructured. Both the environment and the
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of System Science and task are dangerous for the robots. According to the exiting
Engineering Institute, Rome University in Italy initiated research of search and rescue robots in the world and
the “Rescue Project”. The Canadian Department of Defense the experiences and lessons learned in their application in the
established the search and rescue robot research project for 9.11 attack, the most key performances required for a
the national security. Researchers and RoboCup participants search and rescue robot are survivability, mobility, sensor,
in England, Iran and other countries also have shown great communication and operation [11,22,24–26].
interests in the mechanism, sensor, control and simulation of
search and rescue robots. 3.1 Survivability
In the RobCup 2001, Sharif University was the only
competitor that could travel in the orange and red arenas. Survivability of search and rescue robot mainly reflects
The present version of Sharif University’s rescue robot the reliability, durability and adaptability of a robot
EMDAD1, as shown in Fig. 17(a), is a tele-operated robot. platform. Survivability in the possible environment with the
An operator remotely controls the robot through a TCP/IP dangerous gas, toxic liquid, biochemical materials, radio-
wireless local-area network (WLAN) and receives the images active substances, extreme temperatures and the risk of
and sounds of the scene when the robot is moving on. The secondary collapse is very important. For instance, in a fire
software developed for this robot consists of a user-friendly disaster, the robot platform should overcome the extremely
interface, control programs, simple versions of path drawing high temperature and be paid special attention in materials
selection. In a dangerous gas or toxic liquid, the robots must
and planning and stereo vision image processing programs. In
face the threat caused by toxic corrosion; therefore, both
the next version, additional software will be used to provide
material selection and structural sealing are important. In the
more autonomy for victim detection, collision avoidance
disaster ruins with acute edges, the safety of the robot’s wires
and decision making (http://linux.ce.sharif.ac.ir/~mobasser/ and the surface hardness should be considered. Considering
RESCUE1.HTM, 2005-08-25). In the Robocup 2003, which the power supply of search and rescue robots, both the wired
held in Padova, Italy, the first three robot winners in sequence supply and the wireless way are required to ensure the rescue
are the “ROBRNO” shown in Fig. 17(b) from Brno operation hours.
University of Technology, Czech Republic, the “Cedra” Another requirement in the survivability of a search and
shown in Fig. 17(c) from Sharif University of Technology, rescue robot is the flexibility of software and hardware to take
Iran, and the “IUTMicrobot” shown in Fig. 17 (d) from different actions in different cases, region and operations.
Isfahan University of Technology, Iran (http://www.dis. Disasters are so changeable that disasters of the same
uniroma1.it/~rescue/, 2005-08-25). type will not result in similar damages, and the same disaster
 413
in different regions will have different effects. Therefore, a characteristics, is usually different. Therefore, terrain detec-
search and rescue robot should have adequate adaptability tion is difficult. In victim or survivals detection, objects
and forecast for the changing environments. Robots should include the victims or survivals’ body, clothing, footprint,
have the intelligence to respond to the challenges and the voice information, temperature information, apparel informa-
instable/disturbing factors in the environment. tion, position information and the unique human-ray findings,
are used to judge the existence information and lives of
3.2 Mobility victims. Under some special cases, the same detection system
can also be used to search for the victims of animals.
A robot’s mobile platform is very important because the In a sensor system, the video information is crucial to a
mobility is urgently required in a search and rescue environ- search and rescue robot because in rescue process the video
ment. The working environment is complex with too many information can be utilized by the operator to get the on-
debris and narrow spaces. The robot should be small enough site observation. A video can be used like the vision infor-
to overcome it. However, it should be much larger to over- mation collector for the remote operator to find the victims.
come the surrounding obstacles because it is easy to get However, a camera is not the ideal visual navigation or the
tipover if the center of gravity is too high. On the other hand, victim’s inspection equipment. A head lamp must be equipped
the robot should overcome the obstacles as many as possible. for each camera first. In collapsed buildings, all the ground
The stability and the self-adjusting ability are very important has a thick layer of dust that leads to all the things being gray.
in avoiding dropping into fragments. Being repeated, modu- If the victims have slight movements, the dust of the ground
larized and fault-tolerance, the link-type snake-like structure will be significantly changed. Therefore, color camera is
is proved to be one of the most efficient mechanisms for the indispensable. New technology such as digital temperature
search and rescue operation. In the unstructured environment, camera has good recognition ability, but it has too high
it is unavoidable that the robot will be damaged or part of it requirement to an operator. Sonar can not work at such a case,
will fail out, therefore, fault-tolerance and fault-handling are because there are too many edges and corners that are non-
important in such cases. Recently, a reconfigurable modular continuous. The ground-penetrating radar, microwave radar
search and rescue robot is considered to be an ideal solution and laser detector have good results; therefore, the cost and
for the paradox. energy consumption are unbearable. Another solution is to
Moreover, the disaster ground is usually soft for dusts, use the artificial intelligence technology, nanotechnology, or
muddy for water leakage from the water pipe or firefighting bionic technology to develop low cost sensors.
equipment and rugged for debris, the robot should have high The information processing and fusion problem exists in
mobility and adaptability in such case. Regarding the existing multi-sensors. Because the search and rescue operation has
wheeled, tracked and legged type mobile mechanism, the the limited ability in data processing, most complex tasks
hybrid mobile structures have been extensively adopted. such as information and data processing should be designated
to outer computers. This will impair its real-time performance.
3.3 Sensor Therefore, the distribution of this task should be reasonable.

Sensors are the most vulnerable components for a search and 3.4 Communication
rescue robot. They have three applications: robot control,
environmental inspection and victims or survivals detection. Communications of a search and rescue robot include three
In robot control, the robot must be aware of its right position, aspects: between operators and robots, between operators and
posture, speed and inner status to keep itself work normally. victims, and among many rescue robots. All communications
Such equipment includes charge coupled device (CCD) should be wireless. The ideal situation is that the autonomous
cameras, laser rangefinders, ultrasonic range finder, contact robot has the ability to move in all environments, locate the
sensors, force sensors, infrared sensors and global position victims, and then communicate with a rescue team. In fact,
system (GPS) sensors. In environmental inspection, environ- there is a lot of software processing and it is difficult for
mental information is very important for robot’s working the robot to complete it independently. A human-machine
status, operation efficiency, saving energy and preventing interface is indispensable. Rescuers must predicate what will
accidents. Environmental inspection includes air quality happen to make good use of existing resources. In many
(oxygen, hydrogen sulfide, methane and carbon dioxide) cases, the robot is not only a tool, but also the substitute of
inspection and detection of temperature, humidity and radio- operators. Therefore, communications between operators and
active substances. Environmental information determines the robots include the robot control and the effective transmitting
effects on a human body to avoid the rescuer getting into of information collected by robots. The two main factors are
the similar dangerous situation. Environmental inspection the accuracy of control commands and the completeness of
includes both environmental geology and topography for the signal processing.
two reasons: 1) to avoid the environments with obvious threat Communications between operators and survivals are
to robots; b) to avoid causing greater damage and a secondary mainly voice and image transmission. Important bilateral
collapse. The static/dynamic ground, as well as its shape and audio transmission equipment is microphone. According to
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audio interaction, survivors can not only know the arrival of attracted great attention of the experts/scholars in the related
rescue teams but also guide the rescue operation to further fields [30–32]. Currently, the research on the search and
look for other victims. An audio message is a very good tool, rescue robot mainly refers to the implementation of a single
but it also has shortcomings. The rescue scene is very noisy platform. Because the search and rescue robots gradually
with the roar of various machines. Voice discrimination is come from laboratory into the application, and with the
difficult. The communication among rescue robots is blocked environmental and manipulative requirements of search and
by ruins. Currently, there is no efficient way to accomplish rescue robots, many technologies integration and multi-agent
this, whereas, it is really urgent to be solved. networks are the future developmental tendencies of search
and rescue robots.
3.5 Operation
4.1 Integration of various technologies
The capability of an operation is considered to be a synthetical
index of a search and rescue robot. Mainly two issues exist. Because a search and rescue robot is developed for the
The operability denotes that the robots are easily to be dangerous and complex disaster environment, the research
operated. The manipulative ability denotes that the robots and development of a search and rescue robot and using
have the operational ability to some tasks. In operability, autonomous intelligent robots in disaster environments to
different types of rescue robots perform differently. The search and rescue are new challenges in robotics research.
robot must be controllable and easy to be controlled. The A disaster environment has uncertain and unpredictable
mostly used platforms are light-weighted, small-sized, and characteristics. Autonomy, flexibility, redundancy, fault-
portable. The manipulative ability globally embodies the tolerance, reliability, practicality and durability are the key
survivability, mobility, sensors, communication and human- performances of a rescue robot in the application. When in
machine interface. It mainly includes the following three a real application, it is inevitable to use the remote control
aspects. and monitor technology, human-computer interaction, multi-
1) Exploration. The commander and operator determine sensor technology, navigation and positioning technology,
the location of the dangerous disaster scene and then use the machine intelligence, network technology, multi-agent coor-
rescue robots for data sampling and recording or recording dination and control technology and the specially related
the building’s 3D Geographic Information System (GIS)
technologies for the disaster scene. Figure 18 shows some of
and physical information. According to the information, the
the traditional disciplines such as mechanical technology,
rescue commander or correlative staff determines whether the
sensor technology, control technology, signal processing
working site is safe or not to minimize the risk of rescue
technology, computer science and some newly subjects such
teams.
as artificial intelligence technology, new energy technology,
2) Search. The search and rescue robot goes into the narrow
new materials technology, multi-sensor data fusion tech-
space or caves where is unavailable to the rescue team to
nology, network technology, remote operation of remote
search or identify the victims or survivals.
3) Rescue assistant. The rescue robot provides a series of control technology, ergonomics, bionics, and a number of
services such as carrying the necessary equipment, supplying related disciplines such as psychology and disaster science,
the urgently needed material to the survivals, being the mobile engineering, rescue, the ruins of engineering, geology,
communications interim, communicating with the operators nursing, and other technical disciplines. Various categories
and the survivals, planning the safe route for the survivals, of knowledge’s integration will provide an effective operation
saving the survivals independently, protecting the survivals of the rescue robot system. It can be safely obtained that a
from unpredictable dropping fragments, and transporting the search and rescue robot system is the core technology that
victims or survivals. urgently needed by national development in a high strategy
Generally, there are different requirements for the level. It involves a lot of factors such as national security,
rescue robots at different rescue stages. The rescue robot or national economy and national technology competitiveness.
the rescue operation should adapt to the requirements and It will play an important role and have a major strategic
perform corresponding operations. significance in the national economy development and
security.

4 Developmental tendencies for search and 4.2 Multi-agent network

rescue robot
In a disaster rescue operation, the ground rescue robots,
China is one of the few countries with serious disasters in unmanned aerial helicopters, ground rescue workers, medical
the world. The frequent disasters have various types and personnel and ground ambulance vehicles form a multi-agent
wide geographic distribution [27–29]. The representative three-dimensional network to achieve multi-agent communi-
disasters such as traffic accidents, mine disasters, earthquakes, cation and information sharing. As shown in Fig. 19, they
floods, fires and typhoons-based disaster in China brought are distributing in the disaster area, defended area, and public
great destruction to public safety and national economy and areas to perform rescue operations. The disaster area refers to
 415

Fig. 18 Integration of a variety of technologies

Fig. 19 Multi-agent network for search and rescue

the disaster sites where a catastrophe may continue to occur. high-precision GPS and inertial navigation detection to
Compared with the disaster area, a public area is the relatively achieve high-precision flight path and the high-precision
safe area facing the public and the media. The defended area measurement of observing locus. Medical staff and ambu-
separating the disaster area and the public area is used for lances are mainly organized for the rehabilitation and trea-
an emergency rescue operation. Ground mobile robots can tment for rescued personnel. The complex rescue network
be designated with variety of different tasks. Ground robot will be a large-scale intelligent rescue system.
teams need to have mobility in ground, shallow marshes and
swamps. It is very important to rapidly and correctly collect
the information in order to initial rescue activities. Therefore, 5 Conclusion
unmanned helicopter systems and a rescue center should
be the transit points for information. The information Disaster prevention, mitigation and rescue severely affect
provided by UAV facilitates rescue teams facilitating the the safety of people’s lives and their properties. A rescue
detailed investigation and the rescue plan. Unmanned aerial operation plays an important role in public safety. In an
helicopters are unusually transported by rescue vehicles. extremely dangerous and terrible disaster, search and rescue
Operators in a rescue vehicle operate the UAV to investigate robots can replace rescuers and help them in related rescue
the disaster scene to provide high-value information by using operations. Search and rescue robots have wide applications
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