Robots for Urban Search and Rescue

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Robots for Urban Search and Rescue

• Game-Based Design of Human-Robot Interfaces for
  USR
• CHI2004

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Robotic Search and Rescue

• At least 3 used to search the rubble of the World
  Trade Center
• Not very sophisticated bots

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Other robotic work

• Life-threatening work, like mine-clearing
• De-mining resulted in at least 500 deaths from
  1996 to 2002, according to a database maintained
  by the Journal of Mine Action.

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RoboCupRescue

• Simulation Project, Robotics and Infrastructure
  Project, Simulation League and Robot League
• Integration of these activities creates
  digitally-empowered international rescue brigades
  in the future.

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Inspirational Interface

• First Person Shooters
• Besides point and click fragging,
• players can
• quickly assess the environment
• make time-critical decisions
• control low-level decisions
• This maps very closely with the requirements and
  goals of Urban Search and Rescue

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brothers? cousins?

• Searching a maze or building for enemies
• Vs.
• Using a robot to explore an arena and find
  victims

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HRI

• Human-Robot Interface awareness
• Human side location, activities, status, and
  surroundings of the robot
• Robot side human commands it will receive, and
  physics it operates under

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awarenesses II

• From the FPS user interface, we derive the ideas
  of
• Surroundings awareness
• Status awareness

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The robot design

• Magellan Pro robot
• 450 MHz PIII
• 16 sensor panels
• Pan-tilt-zoom camara
• Wireless microphone

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(No Transcript)
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Interface incorporation

• Most control via keyboard
• No mouselook due to hardware limitations
• WASD for robot direction
• UHJK for vision

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• Victim interest point
• Dialog window for entering victim data
• Saved time - didnt have to fill out paper form
• Additions
• Creates on the fly webpage of victim data

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Hip Info

• Dynamically created webpage could be sent to
  rescue workers equipped with PDAs
• Instant access to
• victim's status
• image of the victim
• surrounding area
• a map to the victim

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End Game

• Results
• Keyboard design idea good and quick, but with a
  high learning curve
• Large rotational movements had bad effects
• Short-changed surroundings awareness

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The Future

• Harder Competitions
• More real-life problems, like communication
  blackouts
• With more autonomy comes more robots searching!
• Redundancy
• Faster search
• Another point of view design needed

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real time strategy games(RTS in nerdspeak)
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RTS UI requirements

• Accurate mapping and localization
• Autonomous navigation and searching
• Sharing of information amongst robots
• Ability to identify relevant visual features

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Game Over

• (Groan)
• Credits
• Maxwell, Ward, Heckel, Game-Based Design of
  Human-Robot Interfaces for Urban Search and
  Rescue
• Natl Geographic Today news article
• (http//news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/09/0
  914_TVdisasterrobot
• .html)
• Blizzard Entertainment (Starcraft)
• Microsoft Games (Halo)
• RoboCupRescue - http//www.isd.mel.nist.gov/RoboCu
  p2003/background.htm
• PCWorld.com mine robots news (http//www.pcworld
  .com/news/article/0,aid,110127,00.asp)