SEARCH teams in Manhattan are carrying out most of their grim task by hand,
but last week 12 robots were also on the scene. Six or more were due to arrive
later.
Only five people are thought to have made it out alive after the World Trade
Center collapsed. But for the first time in a major urban disaster, robots have
been working alongside rescuers to find people trapped in rubble. 鈥淲e can get
them into places that no human can go,鈥� says John Blitch, a retired lieutenant
colonel and a director at the National Institute for Urban Search and Rescue in
Santa Barbara.
Rescuers lowered one football-sized robot 100 metres into a sewer, where they
believed they could hear the voice of a trapped victim. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a small little
tank-looking thing, with two tracks, two lights, a lens, a low-light camera,
microphone and speakers,鈥� Blitch, a veteran of the search for survivors of the
Oklahoma City bombing, told 快猫短视频. It lets rescue workers talk to people
who are trapped, but in this instance the voice turned out to be that of another
rescuer echoing from far down the tunnel.
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Using robots can not only save trapped victims, it protects the lives of
rescuers confronted by unstable rubble. Robots are expendable, and can get to
work inside ruins without waiting for them to be made safe.
Low-tech aids include tethered cameras that can manoeuvre through holes and
crevices to search for survivors, while high-tech probes have smart sensors and
are semi-autonomous. It might be able to flip over, or if it loses contact with
the rescuers it might come back to the tunnel to retune to the communications
signal, says Blitch.
Robots can also carry infrared cameras to detect heat, helping rescuers work
out if someone is alive. These are especially useful in situations like that in
New York, where body-recognition devices that home in on skin tones would be
useless because everything is covered in a thick layer of dust.
There are many emerging technologies that should make rescue operations
easier, though it is unclear which devices will work best in real rescue
situations. They include robotic caterpillars and miniature robotic scouts that
work in packs
(快猫短视频, 2 October 1999, p 11;
26 August 2000, p 17).
Blitch is working with the National Institute of Standards and Technology in
Gaithersburg, Maryland, to develop standards for testing the performance of such
systems.
But despite the advantages that robots bring, they can never replace the
emergency services. Blitch鈥檚 conviction for robots is put in perspective by his
admiration for rescue workers. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 emphasise it enough,鈥� he says. 鈥淩obots
are not rescuing people. People are rescuing people with the assistance of
谤辞产辞迟蝉.鈥�
