NDLI: Building better swarms through competition: lessons learned from the AAAI/RoboCup Rescue Robot competition

Content Provider	IEEE Xplore Digital Library
Author	Stormont, D.P. Bhatt, A. Boldt, B. Skousen, S. Berkemeier, M.D.
Copyright Year	2003
Description	Author affiliation: Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Utah State Univ., Logan, UT, USA (Stormont, D.P.; Bhatt, A.; Boldt, B.; Skousen, S.; Berkemeier, M.D.)
Abstract	A common problem in a disaster situation, whether man-made or natural, is the need to quickly identify locations of potential victims and potential hazards to human rescuers, with minimal personnel on site at the beginning of the emergency. Robots can be used to supplement available personnel and to assist them in their search. However, it is important that the robots used not pose a danger to rescuers and victims through collisions or causing structural collapse and that they not get in the way of rescue efforts. Another problem in a disaster area is that environmental conditions (e.g., rubble, scrap metal, dust, smoke, and fire) can make it difficult for robots to maneuver, reduce effectiveness of sensors, and hamper communications. We believe the best approach to developing an effective robotic assistant to human rescue teams is through swarms of low-cost, small robots. The robots should be low cost to eliminate concerns about not recovering them after a disaster. They should be small so they don't hinder or pose a risk to humans (rescuers can kick them or step on them if they are in the way and they will be too small to move objects or injure a person through collision). And we believe a swarm should be used to maximize the area covered while maintaining enough contact between robots to maintain a reliable communications link. A swarm of small robots programmed with simple behaviors can achieve these goals while keeping costs down. This paper describes the efforts we have undertaken at Utah State University in developing urban search and rescue robot swarms for the American Association for Artificial Intelligence and RoboCup Rescue Robot competitions. Both of these competitions make use of the standard urban search and rescue test course developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Our initial efforts to try to determine the bare minimum competence required for a rescue swarm are described, as are our efforts to improve communications between robots and a base station. Our current efforts to implement a flocking behavior in a robot swarm are described, as is the most recent modular, behavioral robot design we are working on. The development of a graphical user interface for use by rescuers to interface with the swarm is also described. Finally, we discuss the direction we think this research needs to take in the future.
Sponsorship	IEEE Robotics & Autom. Soc. IEEE Ind. Electron. Soc. Robotics Soc. Japan Soc. Instrum. & Control Eng. New Technol. Found
Starting Page	2870
Ending Page	2875
File Size	697537
Page Count	6
File Format	PDF
ISBN	0780378601
DOI	10.1109/IROS.2003.1249306
Language	English
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Publisher Date	2003-10-27
Publisher Place	USA
Access Restriction	Subscribed
Rights Holder	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subject Keyword	Robot sensing systems Humans Personnel Costs Maintenance Intelligent robots NIST Hazards Fires Artificial intelligence
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
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9	IDR Setup or Support	Queries related to establishment and support of Institutional Digital Repository (IDR) and IDR workshops	idr@ndl.gov.in

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