Experimental Validation of a Robotic Stretcher for Casualty Evacuation in a Man-Made Disaster Exercise

This paper describes a cooperative search and rescue exercise where an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) is used by a military rescue team for extraction and evacuation of a casualty from an unsafe man-made disaster area. This experimental validation was performed within a full-scale emergency response exercise organized on June 2019 by the Chair of Safety, Emergencies and Disasters at Universidad de Málaga (Spain). With this purpose, we adapted the skid-steer Rambler robot to carry a stretcher with appropriate roll-in and locking mechanisms. The mission consisted of two phases: first, extraction from the hot zone was performed with remote teleoperation using a dummy; second, casualty evacuation (CASEVAC) to an aeromedical evacuation point was done with sightline teleoperation moving an actual volunteer. The realistic one-shot exercise was performed by actual rescue personnel with no previous experience with the robotic system. The paper shares insight and lessons learned from this concept validation experience.