Since the 9/11 World Trade Center attack, small ground, aerial, and marine robots have been used to save lives and reduce the impact of disasters. The same robots, combined with artificial intelligence, are also being used to prevent or at least mitigate disasters. This talk describes how robots have been used, why disasters may be more challenging than planetary rovers, and what are the promising advances in AI and hardware. It will also discuss the invisible barriers that may be slowing down the transfer of this valuable technology to local emergency management, limiting the benefit to society.
This talk was given at the Hi! PARIS Symposium 2024 by Dr. Robin R. Murphy who is the Raytheon Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University and a director of the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (non-profit). She is an AAAS, ACM, and IEEE Fellow, a TED speaker, and the author of over 400 papers and four books including the award-winning Disaster Robotics. She has deployed ground, aerial, and marine robots to over 30 disasters in five countries including the 9/11 World Trade Center, Fukushima, Hurricane Harvey, and the Surfside collapse.