Department
of Homeland Security
Urban Search and Rescue Robot Performance Standards
Events
Upcoming
Events
Disaster
City, Texas A&M University
College Station, TX
November 17 - 20, 2008
November 21, 2008 Standards Working Group Meetings (ASTM E54.08.01)
Past
Events
June
23-25, 2008
ASTM
E54 Task Group Meeting during ASTM Committee Week June 2008
This
meeting was held in Denver, CO at the Hyatt Regency Denver at Convention
Center
The
ASTM International E54.08.01 Task Group on Urban Search & Rescue
(US&R) Robots will be meeting as part of ASTM's Committee Week in
Denver, CO, June 25 from 8 am to 11 am.
More
information can be found at the ASTM website under E54
Homeland Security Applications
Notes
from the meeting (in pdf)
March
9-12, 2008
This
meeting was held in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
2nd
International Joint Topical Meeting on Emergency Preparedness &
Response and Robotics & Remote Systems
The
10th Emergency Preparedness and Response Topical Meeting and the 12th
Robotics and Remote Systems for Hazardous Environments Topical Meeting.
More information can be found at http://cimar.mae.ufl.edu/rrsd/
Robot
Showcase during the Reception
Sunday,
March 9th, NIST arenas for evaluating robot performance will be set
up during the reception. Participants are encouraged to bring robots
to run through the arena challenges, which will consist of mobility,
manipulation, and sensing tasks. Please email us if you want to participate.
usar.robots@nist.gov
January
28-30, 2008
ASTM
E54 Task Group Meeting - ASTM Committee Week January 2008
This meeting was held in Tampa, FL at Marriott Waterside.
The
ASTM International E54.08.01 Task Group on Urban Search & Rescue
(US&R) Robots will be meeting as part of ASTM's Committee Week in
Tampa Florida January 30 from 8am - 11am .
More
information can be found at the ASTM website under E54
Homeland Security Applications
Report
from the meeting (in pdf)
Presentation slides (in pdf)
ASTM
E54.08.01 Task Group Meeting - ASTM Committee Week June 2007
The
ASTM International E54.08.01 Task Group on Urban Search & Rescue
(US&R) Robots held a meeting as part of ASTM's Committee Week in
Norfolk Virginia June 2007.
Presentation
slides (in pdf)
Response
Robot EvaluationExercise (#4)
Disaster
City, Texas A&M University
College Station, TX
June 18-22, 2007 and
June 22, 2007 Standards Working Group Meetings (ASTM E54.08.01)
ASTM
E54.08.01 Task Group Meeting - ASTM Committee Week January 2007
The
ASTM International E54.08.01 Task Group on Urban Search & Rescue
(US&R) Robots held a meeting as part of ASTM's Committee Week in
Anaheim CA January 2007.
Report
from the meeting (in pdf)
Presentation slides (in pdf)
Response
Robot Evaluation Exercise (#3)
Montgomery
County Fire Rescue Training Academy
Rockville, MD
August 19 - 21, 2006
Response
Robot Evaluation Exercise (#2)
Disaster
City, Texas A&M University
College Station, TX
April 4-6, 2006 and
April 7, 2006 Standards Working Group Meetings (ASTM E54.08.01)
Urban
Search and Rescue Performance Measures for Intelligent Systems Workshop
NIST
organized a workshop on Urban Search and Rescue Performance Measures
for Intelligent Systems at the upcoming International Joint Topical:
9th Emergency Preparedness and Respose/11th Robotics and Remote Systems
for Hazardous Environments Conference in Salt Lake City. For more information,
go to www.2006sharingsolutions.com/workshopD.shtml.
Flier [PDF]
Kickoff
Meeting of ASTM E54.08.01
The
ASTM International E54.08.01 Task Group on Urban Search & Rescue
(US&R) Robots held their first meeting at ASTM headquarters on December
5th, 2005.
Report
from the meeting (in pdf)
Responders
Meet Robots in the Desert
The
fourth workshop, hosted at the Nevada Task Force 1 (NV-TF1) training
facility rubble pile August 6th through 9th 2005, brought together responders
with a wide variety of robots that hold promise for use in US&R
operations, allowed the responders to begin evaluating the available
robots informally, and helped them to refine the robot categories and
performance requirements captured previously. Similar workshops will
be ongoing until the responders have been exposed to representative
robot technologies from all defined categories (e.g. ground, aerial,
aquatic) and are able to knowledgably define objective and threshold
performance values for each requirement.
The
workshop's location and timeframe was chosen to coincide with the semi-annual
FEMA task force leaders meeting. Through the valuable support of the
FEMA task force members who have been ongoing participants in our US&R
robot standards effort, NIST was able to organize this workshop to maximize
the utility for three different constituencies: FEMA responders and
leadership; robot developers and researchers; and the NIST engineers
who are devising performance test methods to propose as standards. Workshop
activities took place each morning at the NV-TF1 training facility (a
rubble pile with devised scenarios such as a representation of a freeway
collapse) an then each afternoon in a hotel conference room in which
NIST set up a proposed mobility test apparatus (a.k.a. "prop")
on which responders could learn and practice the various robot control
systems in relative comfort. Temperatures in the desert were well above
100 degrees Fahrenheit, which limited the amount of time that could
be spent on the pile.
Diverse
sets of robots from the ground, aquatic, amphibious, and aerial domain
and with varying levels of technical maturity were operated by representatives
of numerous FEMA Task Forces. The main portion of the hands-on robot
operation time was spent at the NV-TF1 training facility. For each of
the training scenarios, simulated victims were placed within the rubble
for the operators to find using the robots. The simulated victims showed
various signs of life using clothed human forms (mannequin parts) with
body heat (heating blankets), voice or tapping (continuous tape recorders),
and sometimes motion.
click on
image to view larger photo
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| Figure 1a:
Overview of NV-TF1 rubble pile. Tents for robot developers were
set up on the perimeter |
Figure 1b:
Responders operating robot within freeway collapse area |
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| Figures
2: Responders reviewing scenarios on rubble pile Saturday morning |
AUVSI
Unmanned Systems North America Symposium Exhibit
The
US&R Program entered a contract with the Association for Unmanned
Systems International (AUVSI) and participated in the exhibit program
of the Unmanned
Systems North America Symposium. The Symposium was held on June
28-30, 2005 in Baltimore, Maryland. Booth assignment was #540.
Public
Forum
May 13, 2005
National Institute of Standards and Technology
The
Department of Homeland Security and the National Institute of Standards
and Technology hosted a public forum on May 13, 2005 on the NIST campus.
The forum allowed interested parties to learn more about the overall
program vision, timelines, and current status from representatives from
the Department of Homeland Security and the National Institute of Standards
and Technology. Attendees had the opportunity to provide input
on availability and viability of technology solutions to address the
performance requirements for US&R robots.
Forum
Agenda in pdf. (Get Adobe Acrobat
Reader)
Presentations
from the Forum (in pdf)
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