Rescue Robot Field Exercise

Feb 11, 2005 New Jersey Task Force

As part of our NSF R4: Rescue Robots for Research and Response grant, I'd like to invite you to participate in our next field outing. It will be New Jersey Task Force 1 at their site near Lakehurst, NJ, (yes, where the Hindenburgh blimp was) on Feb 11, 2005. Also, I want to make you aware that we currently have 4 rescue robot platforms that we have written software interfaces for and these are available for you to borrow for up to a semester at a time and certainly for RoboCup. (The software is compatible with our distributed field robotics architecture and does not include the software from the RoboCup Rescue Camp-- but would like it to.) 4 more robots should be available after May.

On Feb. 11, you will be able to try out your equipment or algorithms in the large rubble pile in outdoor weather conditions (cold, icy mud) and directly interact with emergency responders. We will also have robot platforms that you may be able to mount sensors to, and will be happy to help you migrate code to our platforms. The day will begin with an overview of USAR activities and a safety briefing, followed by 4-7 hours on the rubble. We will have an outbrief session at the end of the day (around 4:30pm) and the session will conclude at 5:30.

We are limited in the number of people that can attend, so please respond as soon as you can. The exercise on Feb. 11 is targeted for US researchers, not companies (a different set of opportunities exists for them), and is also open to international researchers as space permits. Unfortunately, the grant does not pay for participant travel or equipment shipping expenses. We expect the next field event to be in June on the East Coast and hopefully one more during the summer, but these are not confirmed. As a researcher, I know that having advance notice is very helpful and we will continue to try to schedule events as far out into the future as we can, but it is often hard for the rescue teams to commit to a date.

If you are interested in participating, please contact Laura Barnes