Communications of the ACM
W Building Teleoperated Robots for Disaster Response in National Challenge
This robot has a mounted camera and router to transmit the robots view of the scene, and built-in haptics technology allows the operator to receive force feedback from the robot.
Credit: University of Washington
Working as part of the SmartAmerica Challenge, University of Washington (UW) researchers say they have developed telerobotics technology that could make disaster response faster and more efficient.
The SmartAmerica Challenge is an initiative that encourages the development of new technologies that help society in the connected world. "We are working on an application of technology that's clearly for the public good, and that's what motivated our team's idea," says UW professor Howard Chizeck.
The researchers, called the Smart Emergency Response System team, want to combine conventional "smart" technologies, including teleoperated robots, a high-tech dispatch system, drones, and vests equipped with sensors and global-positioning system tracking, to better serve society during disaster and crisis response. "The key is we're taking many developed technologies from different organizations and putting them together in a way that's innovative," Chizeck says.
The researchers are focusing on developing robots that can interact more seamlessly with human operators. "The idea is really to combine the skills and situational awareness of a human operator with the precision and repeatability of an autonomous robot," says UW researcher Fredrik Ryden. "This way we can rely as much on a robot as we can on a human."
From University of Washington News and Information
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