NSF Awards Exploratory Grant for Shoring Robots

The National Science Foundation has awarded Prof. Robin Murphy, director of the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR), a small exploratory research grant to investigate the use of robots for extricating survivors from rubble. Teams of small rescue robots could quickly crawl into areas that rescuers could not reach, place the airbags, and then work together to automatically adapt the shoring as the rubble was removed or shifted. The idea came from rescuer workers who saw CRASAR robots being used to search deep within the rubble pile at the WTC. "Once the FEMA teams saw the small robots, they started bombarding us with hundreds of ideas on how to use them," says Prof. Murphy. "Adaptive shoring was one of the highest priorities in their mind. So we're just working our way down their list, no matter how hard the problem is." The NSF-sponsored research could set the stage for robot shoring systems to be in the field within 5-10 years.

"The purpose of the grant is to evaluate the feasibility of these teams of robots, what it would actually take, rather than to build a complete working system," says Prof. Murphy. The problem is extremely challenging since it requires advances in sensors, mechanisms, and distributed control. Some work on shoring has been done in Japan, but has been based on large, bulldozer types of vehicles. By contrast, CRASAR robots are often small enough to fit into a backpack that can be easily carried by a rescuer or quickly shipped anywhere in the world.

The high risk nature of the research qualified the project for the small grant for exploratory research (SGER) award under the Dr. Alison Flatau, program director for the Dynamic Systems Modeling, Sensing and Control Program at NSF. Under a SGER award, researchers conduct an intense one-year investigation, rather than spend the standard 3 to 5 years on what may prove to be a dead-end. Prof. Murphy added that there are two approaches that will be considered. One approach is to use cheap sensors and robots, so that the robots are expendable. Another approach is that the robots place the airbag, then move back and control the airbag from a distance.

For more information contact:

USF Media Relations at (813) 974-9092
Alicia Slater-Haase (College of Engineering) at 813-974-9896