Department of Homeland Security
Urban Search and Rescue Robot Performance Standards

Disaster City, Texas A&M University
College Station, TX
November 17 - 20, 2008
November 21, 2008 Standards Working Group Meetings (ASTM E54.08.01)

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
American Nuclear Society
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)

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
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
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)

Date Created:12/07/2010
Last updated: 12/07/2010