No matter just how much energy and time and money we put into a robot, it’s going to be an extremely extremely long time before we come up with anything that’s anywhere near to as capable as a canine. From a robotics point of view, pets are utterly amazing: they’re quickly, effective, able to cover all sorts of terrain, can comprehend both verbal and gestural commands, and they work on pet food.
Dogs do have some restrictions: they can’t move rubble, and they’re not that great at flying, either. Robots can do these things, however in a disaster situation, the secret is getting all these various pieces (robotics, pets, humans, and anything else) to work together in a coherent way.
The Smart Emergency Response System (SERS) is attempting to make this work, using a mix of “ground and aerial self-governing automobiles, drones, humanoids, human-operated telerobots, and experienced search-and-rescue pets geared up with real-time sensing units” to save as many lives as possible in an emergency.
The task involves a number of companies, consisting of North Carolina State University, MathWorks, University of Washington, MIT, BluHaptics, National Instruments, University of North Texas, Boeing, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
This might be one of the most charmingly awful graphics I’ve ever seen, however I like how it reveals an ATLAS with what I think might be a canine beside it, and all of us understand how well pet dogs and robotics get along.
Anyway, the SERS system integrates whatever sort of communications are offered (Wi-Fi, cellular, Bluetooth, and so on) to link autonomous and semi-autonomous robots with a centralized command center.
1 Comment
This is very cool! So incredible the great things modern technology and tools such as drones can do.