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Department of Homeland Security
Urban Search and Rescue Robot Performance Standards

Program Overview

Application-specific robot standards and repeatable performance testing with objective performance metrics will accelerate the development and deployment of mobile robotic tools for US&R responders, enhancing the effectiveness of these teams while reducing the risks to personnel during disaster response. Currently, no such standards or performance metrics exist.

In order to address this need, the DHS Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate initiated an effort in fiscal year 2004 with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to develop comprehensive standards related to the development, testing, and certification of effective robotic technologies for US&R applications. These standards will address robot mobility, sensing, navigation, planning, integration into operational caches, and human factors. Such standards will allow DHS to provide guidance to local, state, and federal homeland security entities regarding the purchase, deployment, and use of robotic systems for US&R applications.

This standards development effort focuses on fostering collaboration between US&R responders, robot vendors, and robot developers to generate consensus standards for task specific robot capabilities and interoperability of components. Furthermore, the effort includes the development and administration of technology readiness level (TRL) assessment exercises. These exercises will generate statistically significant performance data for developmental and field-able robotic systems.

Figure 1: DHS US&R Robot Standards Process

In order to ensure the relevance and viability of robots to US&R, the program follows a multi-year, iterative process, shown conceptually in Figure 1. The high-level effort areas and corresponding timeline are shown in Figure 2. To ensure that results are available as soon as possible, the effort is staged into two "waves," with the highest priority requirements (that appear to be technologically attainable) being deployable in the FY06-FY08 timeframe. A second wave promulgates the remaining performance and interface standards.

The entire program is structured to ensure that the end-users' needs are captured and addressed. Therefore, there will be annual workshops to monitor progress as well as several events that allow responders to test out the robotic equipment in realistic environments and situations, shown on the timeline as technology readiness level (TRL) assessment exercises. The requirements defined by the responders will be the foundation for constructing robot performance measures along with testing and evaluation (T&E) protocols that will provide reproducible methods for assessing and comparing the effectiveness of overall robotic systems and key components. Test sites that can be used to realistically evaluate the robot's capabilities will be developed along with the supporting measurement infrastructure to characterize the various situations that are present and capture robot performance. Ultimately, the goal is to have one or more test sites certified as capable of evaluating robots against the program's resulting performance standards and provide ongoing robot conformance testing. Finally, in recognition that these novel tools need to be integrated into existing responder operations, new standard operating procedures may be developed, along with the corresponding training and deployment plans.

Figure 2: Timeline for DHS US&R Robot Performance Standards Program

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Date Created: 4/20/2005
Last updated: 08/04/2008