Robots put to real test

Citation

(2001), "Robots put to real test", Industrial Robot, Vol. 28 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.2001.04928dab.006

Robots put to real test

Robots put to real testKeywords: Robots, Hazards

Search-and-rescue robots had a chance to compare skills at a recent meeting of the American Association of Artificial Intelligence in Austin, Texas. A mock building collapse encompassing three levels of difficulty set college-built robots to the task of locating victims in a staged area of urban wreckage, according to John Evans, head of the Intelligent Systems Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory in Washington.

The easiest course consisted of a flat field littered with overturned furniture, open doors, and an occasional bit of broken wall. The more difficult course presented the robot searchers with hazards and blockages on two floors, sandwiching a fallen ceiling between them. The most difficult course threw the robots into a tangled maze of hazards: blocked doorways, walls on the verge of collapse, and pipes, rebar, and splintered boards jutting every which way.

Robots sought out clues about the presence of victims in the rubble from a number of hidden targets, including mannequins, infrared emitters, clothing, and recorded voices. A typical run required a robot to enter the collapsed building, navigate through the debris field, and find victims. A robot then had to place by the victim a package representing food, or a radio link to the outside world.

Three courses were used in order to unhitch the skills of navigation from the unrelated skills of perception and planning. In that way, robot makers whose designs stressed perceiving, interpreting, and strategizing were not penalised by designs that emphasised mobility. Similar targets were used in all three courses.