Keynote address I: Human rescue in disaster situations using multi-robot cooperation

An integrated intelligent approach may be used for the coordinated operation and control of a multi-robot system. The talk will present a cooperative multi-robot system for providing emergency services such as clearance, cleanup and human rescue in a disaster situation in an urban environment. In this application it is assumed that the available robots are heterogeneous with different types and levels of resources and capabilities and are not specifically designed for the emergency application. The robots will have their regular tasks for which they are designed (e.g., trash clearing, traffic control, providing assistance to the elderly and the disabled, surveillance). Also it is assumed that there is a means for communicating with robots from any location (e.g., wireless sensor network). When called upon to carry out an emergency operation, the available robots in the neighbourhood will quickly navigate to the site and will negotiate the necessary tasks based on the needs, the robot capabilities, and the available material and other resources. Then they will carry out cooperative tasks to provide appropriate assistance (e.g., construction of a carriage or cart, rescuing humans, providing first aid). Demonstrations will be provided during the talk to illustrate the approaches and their application.